For example, as regards physical strength and the personified forces of nature, the description should single out the precise features that the quality depends upon; being, at the same time, conceivable, consistent, mutually supporting, and free from distracting and irrelevant particulars.

For the moral hero, the method of delineation combines laudatory epithets with narrated conduct; all properly chosen, and fulfilling the several requisites of Ideality, Harmony and Originality or freshness. The poets of Greece afford the earliest examples of success in depicting moral prowess, whether maleficent or beneficent in its employ

ment.

It is under this head that we may see the propriety of attending to the ultimate Constituents of the quality, as made up of maleficent or beneficent adjuncts, together with the more neutral attributes.

(2) The introduction of circumstances that re-act upon the quality; more especially, Effects and Comparisons.

Strength has no absolute value; it subsists upon comparison, like height or depth. Hence the need of constant reference to some standard of judgment—either the effects produced, or some examples of contrasting inferiority.

(3) Harmonizing supports and surroundings.

This condition belongs to Strength in common with other poetic attributes, and is brought forward by way of reminder.

(4) The Subjective Feeling of the supposed spectator.

This aid, also, has its value everywhere; and abundance of cases may be quoted where it is either overdone or misapplied.

(5) A certain degree of Restraint and Suggestiveness.

The mildness of a powerful man, when his power is unmistakeable, may be more impressive than a show of energy. The laws of effective suggestion will appear in the examples.

2. The conditions of Strength are further illustrated by a review of the faults to be avoided in the endeavour to produce it.

(1) The designations Turgidity, Inflation, Bombast, Fustian, Falsetto, Bathos, Magniloquence (in the bad sense), point to the danger of overdoing the language of strength without the requisite supports.

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(2) Arid and uninteresting description, from relying too much on neutral strength, and dispensing with its unctuous emotional accompaniments.

(3) The opposite extreme of pushing malevolence to the horrible, or beneficence to the maudlin. Also making too exclusive use of the emotions, and not doing justice to the grandeur of strength in its neutral character. To work up an imposing picture of pure strength is a great triumph. of poetic art.

STRENGTH EXEMPLIFIED.

In the detailed examination of illustrative passages, there is a choice of arrangement-namely, by Classes or by Constituents. If the classes were chosen-Physical, Moral, &c.,-there would still be wanted a reference to the modes of producing strength, according to its ultimate elements. Whence the preferable course seems to be to follow the order of constituents, under which will fall the several classes as may happen. Moreover, it is only a little way that we can go in obtaining passages under any one head exclusively. In the end, the choice will have to be promiscuous, and the illustration scattered over the classes and constituents at random.

Nevertheless, it is desirable, in the first instance, to exemplify separately Maleficent Strength (including the special case of War or Conflict), Beneficent Strength and Neutral Strength.

MALEFICENT STRENGTH.

MALIGNITY PURE AND SIMPLE.

In the Literature of the world, a large place has always been allowed to the interest of Malignity, regard being had to the necessity of disguising it in a greater or less degree.

As everywhere else, the requirement of adequate, select and consistent representation is supposed: although the strength of the passion allows this to be in a measure dispensed with. The more express artistic condition is to keep within the bounds that each age can tolerate, and to

veil the nakedness of the malignant pleasure by pretexts, diversion, poetic glitter and all the known means of refining the grosser kinds of pleasure.

The foremost pretext for malignant infliction is always Retribution or Revenge, which must be made to appear sufficient, according to the feeling of the time. As the sympathetic side of our nature makes progress, the justification needs to be more ample. A considerable interval divides Malignant Revenge from Righteous Indignation.

Adverting first to the literature of antiquity, we note, as regards Homer, that his audience enjoyed thoroughly, as we do partially, the malignity and cruelty of the leading personages. The harsh conduct of Achilles, however, is glossed over by the provocation he received, by his tragic fate, and by the nobler parts of his character,-that is to say, the intensity of his friendship and his bursts of generosity. Moreover, the poet adorns him with gifts of person and a splendid intellect. These mixtures and palliatives were quite enough to appease the twitchings of sympathy for his victims.

The Greek Tragedians had to set forth dreadful incidents of malignant fury, and to record many undeserved calamities happening to individuals. To give these last the appearance of retribution, they had to resort to fictitious crimes and hereditary liabilities. The arts of poetry being superadded, the mixture proved sufficient. When the disasters seem too great for a family curse, they are dealt with theologicallythat is, by the view of divine government that allows a share to Fate; desert being entirely abandoned.

Any theory of the pleasure of Tragedy that leaves out men's disinterested delight in the infliction of suffering is unequal to the explanation of the phenomenon. The poet is not called upon to choose subjects that grate upon our sympathies, and would not do so unless he could light upon some adequate compensation. By striking the malignant chord of our nature, he does much more than allay the sympathetic pain.

Both Tragedy and Comedy alike repose upon the gratification of our malevolence. The difference between the two will be apparent afterwards.

In middle age Literature-as, for example, in Dantesuffering is for the most part related to misdeeds; but, in

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its horrible disproportion, it sufficiently panders to the perennial delight in malignancy.

The most remarkable illustration of the appetite for the infliction of suffering, with due provision for veiling it by pretexts and artistic devices, is the glorification of the Principle of Evil, in the triumphs of the spiritual enemy of mankind. That it should be possible to make an interesting poem out of the victory of Satan in the ruin of the human race can, with difficulty, receive any other explanation.

There are, doubtless, many feelings evoked in Paradise Lost; but the central and commanding interest is malevolence. We have first a highly-wrought picture of the expulsion of the Satanic host from heaven, and their sufferings in the fiery regions of the lower world, all extremely grateful to us; while the fact of their rebellion is enough as a pretext for gloating over their misery.

So far we are fully justified. But when, in the sequel, Satan plots the ruin of our race, and is successful in achieving it, while his work is only partially undone by the means set forth in the poem, it requires an astonishing intensity of the pleasure of malevolence to view him with any other feelings than extreme revulsion. Man falls, without any adequate reason, except that he was made with free-will, and had to undergo a test of his determination to adhere to the right.

A great part of the handling of Satan lies in the more forcible exhibition of his personal endowments for evil. He is represented as of vast corporeal dimensions and physical force; to which are added moral determination, courage and endurance. All these qualities we may admire in anyone, apart from the use made of them. He has great intellectual resources-deep contrivance, and powers of verbal address, both passionate and argumentative. His devilish hate is repeated in endless variety of diabolical sentiments, to all which the author lends his splendid flow of adorned phraseology and melodious metre. He enters on a daring campaign against the hosts of the Almighty, and maintains a fierce though unequal conflict. We feel satisfaction at his defeat; which, however, is merely a new turn given to our malevolent gratification.

It is emphatically set forth (I. 211) that all the Satanic mischief is to be overruled, in the divine goodness towards

man, and in deeper wrath and vengeance towards man's seducer. This no doubt operates as a diversion of the malevolent interest.

Then something is made of the remaining goodness in Satan himself (I. 591, 619). This slightly relieves our compunctions at being kept so long in the diabolical strain.

The union of the fiend and the cunning sneak, in the invasion of Paradise and the temptation of our first parents, gives us the pleasure of hatred and contempt, in no small degree, and, in the circumstances, we accept it without regarding the disastrous result.

ness.

Interspersed through the poem are numerous incidents and descriptions that command our sympathies with goodThese would not be in the highest degree interesting in themselves; but they are pauses in the plot, during which we recover our self-complacency as taking delight in goodness.

The splendour of the poetry is a great palliation of the horrors of the transactions. These are not given in a coarse realism, but veiled in euphemistic language, and accompanied with every charm that literary genius can evoke.

The remark applies to Milton, in common with the great majority of poets, that the destructive and malignant passions are those most favourable to his range of poetic invention. His grandest strokes are associated with the delineation of the powers of evil: the occasional triumph of these, and their ultimate defeat, being equally an appeal to our pleasure in scenes of suffering.

Many theories have been advanced to explain the inferior interest attaching to Paradise Regained. There may be truth in all; yet they do not supersede the remark, that the plot and action were not such as to pander to our malignant gratification and evoke the highest displays of Milton's imaginative power. Satan as an astute disputant, matched with his superior in the art, did not stir the imaginative force of the poet to the same pitch as when, at the head of the hellish hosts, his shout made all the hollow deep of hell resound, or when he had to encounter Sin and Death at the portal of the infernal regions.

Just as, with Dante, the Inferno excels the other portions of his epic in attractiveness, so, with Milton, the incidents connected with Satan's devilish machinations are poetically more effective than the benign interference of his