BOOK S.

MILTON REDIVIVUS.* WHATEVER may have been the errors in judgment displayed by Bentley, in his notorious attempt to restore the text of Milton, it cannot be denied that the vigour and raciness of his style render his edition uncommonly good reading. Having conjured up a phantom editor,—to whom he ascribes, besides numerous verbal mutilations, the interpolation of sixty odd passages, one extending to the length of fifty-four lines,—he belabours him with his scholastic bludgeon in a fashion vividly recalling Don Quixote's encounter with the windmills,—in both cases, at least, the issue was nearly fatal to the assailant.

Whether Mr. Mull, the latest victim of the lues Bentleiana, has succeeded in vindicating himself from the charge of sacrilege in meddling with the text, or in contributing any valuable criticisms, or failing that, in furnishing the world with an enter- taining and vigorous commentary,—as his forerunnerundoubtedly did,—we trust to be able to afford our readers ample means of de- ciding. It is in no wanton mood of meddling, but penetrated with a reverential spirit for " the sacred ark of Milton's text," that our editor has entered on his task, convinced, however, that this same text is utterly " maimed and corrupt." But when he proceeds to discuss the evidence which has led him to this con- viction, we find that he deals entirely in presumptions, surmises, and suspicions, and has not adduced a fresh iota in support of his conclusions beyond the meagre grounds which led Bentley to make the attempt which Mr. Mull justly stigmatises as an egregious failure. The sense of diffidence in his own powers, on which Mr. Mull so strongly insists, is hard to reconcile with the following remark :—" He [Bentley] certainly had the in- tellectual discernment to see some of them [mutilations of the text], but not, unfortunately, the poetic susceptibility needful to correct them. If others, however, had followed up his scent,' unaccompanied with his rashness, the infliction of a corrupt text so long endured might sooner have been removed or diminished." So far Mr. Mull, who might have avoided many outrages on "the sacred ark " had he possessed a tithe of Bentley's fine scholar- ship. There are, to the best of our belief, some half-a-dozen allusions to Bentley's edition in this book. In one, Mr. Mull most unfairly and incorrectly ascribes to him, as a criticism on a certain passage—which Bentley, arch-meddler that he was, left untouched—a general statement made in his preface. In another, he borrows from Professor Masson, instead of quoting at first hand. There remain two or three trifling mentions of Bentley's emendations, and this is all. We have a special reason for calling attention to this fact, because it is characteristic of the method of the editor, whose pretensions are only equalled by his ignorance. As a specimen of his powers, as a foretaste of what we are to expect, Mr. Mull has embodied in his preface three restora- tions of prime importance,—in his opinion. Ushered in by a verita- ble flourish of trumpets,.these emendations naturally aerakened our curiosity. How that curiosity was satisfied our readers shall shortly judge. The first correction (Paradise Lost, iii., 398) of " Son " to " Sword," is comparatively unimportant. But in the second and third, Mr. Mull unmasks himself in his true colours. The received reading of Paradise Lost, ii., 108-110, runs thus :—

" He [Satan] ended frowning and his look denounced Desperate revenge and battle dangerous To less than gods."

In the hands of Mr. Mull, the fine wine of Milton's diction is, by the converse of a miracle, transmuted into water, nay, ditch- water, and the passage ends "To no less than God !" The same sheer disregard for metre is displayed in his third effort 90.92). Here he alters,— "When the scourge

Inexorable and the torturing hour 'Calls us to penance ?"

to-

" Where the scourge Inexorable, and the torturing fire Galls us to defiance."

When Mr. Mull informs us that " Most of my verbal emendations

• Paradise Loat : The numerous mutilations of the Text emended, alio Hie obnoxious punctuation entirety revised; and all ealloctioalp priontiali soith Notes and Preface, dte. By Matthias Mull. London : Megan Paul, Trench, and Co. possess the same importance as these and many of my

alterations in the punctuation are not less important," his readers are fully and perfectly prepared what to expect. As for the accepted punctuation, our editor holds no words strong enough to denounce it. " Ignorance and incapacity have here found a field for riotous display and revelled to disastrous issues." But his revision of it has elevated many passages " into a higher region of poetry, and clothed them with a more exquisite beauty." These are bold words in truth, and distance even the claims of Bentley. At this point, we are treated to another sample of the author's skill, inserted, he tells us, " out of its due order," owing to its interest and importance,—the reconstruction of the noble opening lines of Book v. :—

" Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' Eastern clime

Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl, When Adam wak't, so custom'd ; for his sleep Was airy light from pure digestion bred, And temperate vapours bland, which th' only sound Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, Lightly dispers'd, and the shrill matin song Of birds on every bough ; so much the more His wonder was to find unwak'nd Eve."

Bentley's odious change of " orient " to " roscid," and alteration of the fifth and following lines to,— "Which the early sound

Of leaves, Aurora's fan, and murm'ring rills Lightly dispelled,"

is bad enough ; but it is dwarfed to nothingness by the ghaitly dislocation of the following :-

" Now Morn, her rosy steps in the Eastern clime Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl And temp'rate vapours bland, which Aurora's fan Lightly dispersed—the only sound [being] of leaves And fuming rills, and the shrill matin song Of birds on every bough ;—so much the more When Adam waked so customed (for his sleep Was aery light from pure digestion bred), His wonder was to find unwakened Eve."

Mark well how " the sacred ark " fares in the third line of the "reconstruction," which involves the assumption that Milton did not know how many syllables there ought to be in a blank verse ! If Mr. Mull had suggested that the penultimate line should run " from pure digestive bread," we should not have been surprised, but only grateful to him for awakening amuse- ment, instead of the horror and indignation excited throughout the whole length of this dismal literary butchery. Following hard on this effort at " reconstruction " is a short essay, entitled " Milton's Works, one Prime Source of Intellectual Develop- ment." It contains the opinions of Bishop Burnet, /ridge Keogh, Macaulay, the Quarterly Review, William Godwin, Carlyle, Professors Faraday and Seeley, Dr. NV. F. Collier, Arthur Hallam, the Times, and Lady Pollock,—as to the value of a conscientious study of Milton. The neglect, however, into which the Paradise Lost has fallen, our editor attributes in great part "to the repulsiveness occasioned by the numerous mutilations and the pernicious punctuation which overlay and deface it." His emendations, besides being embodied in the text, are collected and presented " for easy survey and criti- cism" (pp. xxviii.-cxxxii.) in two divisions,—verbal emendations and those of punctuation. With some of the former we can, fortunately, deal in a summary fashion. The changes of " hasty " to " vasty " (Paradise Lost, i., 730), " adopted " to " addorsed " (v., 218), " is " to " hest " (v., 469), " habitants " to

"habitant," (in the sense of "inhabited ") 460), and of "fatal'

to "natal" (v., 861), besides being miracles of ineptitude, have this to be urged against them—as Mr. Mull might have learnt by consulting a Concordance—that the substituted words in four cases never occur in Milton's poetical works, while the fifth invariably bears a different sense.

The change, again, of " rock " in ii., 181,—" each on hie rock transfixed "—to " rod, meaning his spear or weapon," is quite supereminently silly, as indeed is that of " chains " to " flames," ii., 183, where to make matters worse, Mr. Mull, with suicidal candour, quotes three passages against himself. A notable specimen of his skill occurs in his treatment of the passage (ii., 890.897) containing the fine metaphor,—

" Where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of nature, hold Eternal anarchy amid the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."

Here Mr. Mull places a fall stop at anarchy, and goes on,— "Amidst the noise Of endlents ware hard by Confusion stands"

and dilates oh the cleverness of this preposterous piece bt meddling, " which has rendered the passage so brilliantly lumin- ous," for the space of a page and a half. Let it be at once stated that throughout this melancholy travestie our editor never once betrays the possession of a shred or vestige of appreciation for that classical spirit which steeps every line that Milton wrote. Even Bentley was merciful enough to leave this passage untouched, for though he may have been "devoid of poetic susceptibility," as Mr. Mull declares, Bentley was a scholar, and was familiar with the figure of speech so finely illustrated in the phrase " by Confusion stands." This cause will account for the gratuitous alteration of " ivory port " (iv., 778)—an obvious classical reminiscence—to "rocky port," and for more than one change in the punctuation—one in particular of transcendental folly. Passing over several minor changes, one of sit and taste " to " sip and taste " (v., 369) strikes us as characteristic of our author, and we here reproduce his accompanying comment :— " An angel being invited to partake of nourishment, made it in- cumbent on Adam to prefer his invitation in the most delicate terms ; and this he succeeded in doing, if my reading is adopted. So apposite is sip' to ' taste,' that it can hardly meet with objection ; and the angel did partake in both kinds." On the received reading of the passage,—

" 0 Adam ! one Almighty is, from whom All things proceed " (v., 469), our editor remarks, " This truism alone would

inflame one to tear a passion to tatters." As to the appro.

• priateness or the reverse of the phrase in the form we are convinced Milton wrote it we reserve our opinion ; but we most heartily agree with Mr. Mull in his esti- mate of the effect it has had on himself. No one will deny that he has torn a passion, or the passage, to tatters. One more specimen, and we bid farewell to Mr. Mull in his capacity of a verbal emendator. In the face of the whole drift and bearing of the context, he has not scrupled to alter " now " to " no," in line 597, Book vi. "The enormous blunder involved in the former reading," says Mr. Mull, " is sufficient to discredit every edition, and in every one it appears." In reply to which com- placent assertion we cannot do better than borrow an apostrophe addressed by Bentley to the phantom editor :—" Pray you, Sir, no more of your patches in a poem quite elevated above your Reach and Imitation."

So much for the verbal emendations. As for the punctuation, Mr. Mull amply fulfils his threat of not only altering but re- volutionising it. His system may, in default of a better term,

be termed the hysterico-algebraical. That is to say, it is crammed with dashes, notes of exclamation, and brackets, to -the extent of giving it the appearance of a gigantic equation. Our readers will acquit us of exaggeration, when we inform

them that the novelties of this revised punctuation include 169 parentheses and 135 clauses treated " semi-parenthetically,"

that is, enclosed by dashes. We shrank, we admit it, from the task of counting the number of exclamation marks, but on a modest computation should estimate them at a figure not far short of a thousand. In the event of Paradise Lost ever being adapted for the stage—not a wholly speculative contin- gency, as the recent effort to transfer the Ober-Ammergan Passion-play to the boards of a London theatre proves—we

make no doubt that the devices we have described above would single out this edition as the most suitable one on which to found an acting version. They serve, undoubtedly, in certain places to indicate the " points," and might, therefore, be of use to a schoolboy or to an elocutionist. But whenever Mr. Mull goes beyond the mere sprinkling of these dashes and brackets, his changes are invariably for the worse. We have found our- selves in the position of being unable to agree with him in any single alteration of importance in this sphere, as in that of verbal emendations.

Some of his most prominent remouldings we will now present to our readers; and we should add that in this department Mr. Mull shows himself in one respect quite Bentley's equal,—in the violence of his abuse. " Disastrous, weak, puerile, false, and nauseous treatment," these are the terms heaped on his pre- decessors by Mr. Mull at every turn,—terms doomed, in our opinion, to recoil with tenfold appropriateness on his own rash head. Passing by several trifling changes, we come to one of importance at line 587, Book i. The passage is thus rearranged by Mr. Mull :— "Thus far these beyond Compare of mortal prowess yet observed. Their dread commander stood like a tower."

" Observed," according to Mr. Mull, is here equivalent to "ever

known" or "recorded." If Mr. Mull knew but a little Latin he would be less lavish of his scorn on those editors who allow the sentence to run on,-

" Observ'd

Their dread commander,"

i.e., obeyed, as in Paradise Lost, x. 430,— " So he

Departing gave command and they observed."

Lines 601, seqq., Book ii.,- " And there to pine,

Immovable, infixed and frozen round, Periods of time ;" become, under the Circean wand of Mr. Mull,—

" Immovable, infixed and frozen, round [i.e., full, complete] Periods of time."

Line 792, Book ii., as it stands in the accepted punctuation, he describes as "a wild gallop;" and breaks it up with dashes and a note of exclamation, reducing its pace, to continue his metaphor, to the jolting trot of a dromedary. The first fifty lines of Book iii. have been reorganised with a profusion of dashes and twelve notes of exclamation. We will only inflict one emendation on our readers ; but it is a prodigy—a veritable portent. The " fine Latinism," as Bentley terms it, in the line, " Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream," is amputated by Mr. Mull, and figures as,-

" Or hearest thou rather : pure ethereal stream Whose fountain who shall tell P" The reconstruction of lines 694-701, Book iii., proceeds on the

assumption alluded to above that Milton was destitute of an ear for melody. We give two of them in their new shape with-

out comment.— "Leads to no excess that reaches blame, but Rather merits praise the more it seems excess."

Lastly, even on the exquisite passage, " Now came still evening on " (iv., 598), has Mr. Mull laid his Vandal hand, besprinkling it liberally with his favourite dashes, and connecting it with the previous clause, " whether the prime orb" by placing

a period at " Azores." " All the editors," says Mr. Mull,

" have overlooked that Milton begins at I. 592 an expla- nation as to how 'still evening came on,' either by the setting of the sun or the revolution of the earth." Or, as we should put it, all editors have, by a merciful dispensation of Providence, abstained from mauling a passage of supreme beauty. In one solitary case, that of his emendation of iv., 904, Mr. Mull has the good grace to admit that he cannot say whether he has been very successful in his alteration. He has, at any rate, been very successful in rendering the passage almost unintelligible. A superstitious belief in the efficacy of dashes and brackets, an absolute inability to appreciate the classical structure of Milton's sentences, an equally absolute ignorance of the most rudimentary canons of rhythm,—these are the leading features of Mr. Mull's emendations, whether verbal or in punctuation. We have carefully gone through them all, and this is our deliberate opinion of their merit. In his efforts to .` clear the mud off " the original, Mr. Mull, like an over-zealous restorer, has scraped and cleaned away till the " sacred ask " has disappeared altogether. If we thought that this edition was likely to supersede the accepted text, then we should hold

it high time to write the epitaph of Paradise Lost thus, on the model of a witty Irish distich,— " A living epic once,—now dead and dull Composed by Milton, decomposed by Mall."

But the poem, in its received form, which survived the vigorous onslaught of a great English scholar, spite of his prestige, his

wit, and his learning, has nothing to fear from an assailant of such Lilliputian calibre, in whom the aforesaid advantages are only conspicuous by their absence.