INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE present twelfth book being only one half of the original and then concluding tenth, the revelations of the archangel Michael were to be continued from the flood, at which the eleventh book closes and indeed it was a fortunate circumstance, that Milton, previously to the division, had changed the medium of impression from vision to narration; because it bestows a feature of novelty and distinction upon his concluding book. It is therefore with some surprise that we meet with any objection to this arrangement of the poet, and the wish that he had imparted all his disclosures in the way of picture and vision, in which they commenced: but Mr. Dunster goes at once to the "heart of the mystery," and inquires Whether all the coming subjects were equally suited to the specular mount? The plagues of Egypt, as he observes, so represented, must have been tedious. How was the delivery of the law to have been represented, under all its sublime circumstances, in vision? How could the great miracle (related with concise sublimity) of the heavenly bodies standing still at the command of Joshua, be exhibited in vision? Could the nativity, the life and death of our blessed Lord, or his resurrection (each related in a few lines of exquisite beauty) have been so clearly or adequately displayed in picture? or could his ascension, and resumption of his heavenly seat, and his coming again to judge the world, have been adequately exhibited at all? The pictures even of the eleventh book were of necessity accompanied by some verbal explanations. In the remainder of the history, as Mr. Dunster remarks, “the accruing materials come too thick to be represented in visions; the task would have been laborious to the artist, who would have fatigued and disgusted those, whom he wished to inform and delight." Here, therefore, the poet judiciously reversed his plan. But there is another topic of remark which the concluding book of Milton's divine poem suggests; it is his comparative affluence of invention. The sentence upon Adam might have been attended by immediate expulsion: but how gracious is the divine condescension, to allow some interval of reflection; and, previously to ejectment, to fortify the minds of the repentant pair with anticipated knowledge and distant consolation! Thus the interest of the poem is kept alive with the reader to the last line. The whole of the twelfth book closely relates to Adam and his posterity; and so delightfully are these soothing hopes of happiness administered by the archangel, that we, equally with Adam, forget that we are to quit Paradise; and are, like him, heart-struck by the sudden warning, that “ the hour is come, the very minute of it;” and attend the " hastening angel" to the gates of exclusion, with all the sad and lingering acquiescence of our first parents. ARGUMENT OF BOOK XII. : THE angel Michael continues, from the flood, to relate what shall succeed then, in the mention of Abraham, comes by degrees to explain who that seed of the woman shall be, which was promised Adam and Eve in the Fall; his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension; the state of the church till his second coming. Adam, greatly satisfied and recomforted by these relations and promises, descends the hill with Michael; wakens Eve, who all this while had slept, but with gentle dreams composed to quietness of mind and submission. Michael in either hand leads them out of Paradise, the fiery sword waving behind them, and the cherubim taking their stations to guard the place. |