The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link between the drama and the masque. In this it somewhat resembles _Comus_, employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai dances of the masque.[350]
The story is simple enough. A band of robbers and a company of shepherds and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge--"stoy[=n]age y^{e} wonder y^{t} is vpon that Playne of Sarum"--which forms the background of the scene. It chanced that the shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve him. Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by. During a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda"s sister, and finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force. At this she attempts to stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and is converted to the pastoral life. His companions, left in the lurch, fall upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in his conversion. Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful swains, Palaemon and Dorus.
In this piece there is a rather conspicuous absence of motive and dramatic construction, the author claiming apparently the freedom of the masque.
The verse is mainly octosyllabic, sometimes blank, but the rough accentual "rime" is also used. Decasyllabics are rare. There is also some prose in the comic part sustained by Autolicus and Conto and the aged clown Jarbus, as well as a certain amount of Spenserian archaism, and a good deal of dialect. Whether comic or romantic, the characters are singularly out of keeping with their surroundings, while the conceit of paganizing the Christian worship appears to be carried to ludicrous lengths, until one recollects that it depends almost entirely upon the subst.i.tution of the name of Pan for that of the Deity--a process no doubt facilitated by false etymology. Thus Christ, who is spoken of by name, is called "Pannes blest babe." After describing the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral, the old shepherd proceeds:
But st.u.r.dy shepherds brought all the other stones, And reard up that great Munster all at once, Wher shepherds each one, both woman and man, Do come to worship theyr great G.o.d Pann.
A rustic show formed the first part of an entertainment witnessed by Charles and Henrietta Maria at Richmond, after their return from a visit to Oxford in 1636. A clown named Tom comes in bearing a present for the queen, and is on the point of being unceremoniously removed by the usher, when he espies Mr. Edward Sackville, to whom he appeals, and a dialogue ensues between the two. After he has offered his present, Madge, Doll, and Richard come in, and the four perform a country dance. They are all plain Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain. The author of this slight production is not known, but it is regarded by the latest authority on masques as an imitation, in the looseness of its construction, of Davenant"s _Prince d"Amour_.[351]
Little poetic ability was displayed by Heywood on the only occasion on which he introduced pastoral tradition into a Lord Mayor"s pageant. The "first show by land" of the _Porta Pietatis_, presented by the drapers in 1638 on the occasion of Sir Maurice Abbot"s mayoralty, consisted of a speech by a shepherd, which is preceded in the printed copy by a short account of the properties, natural history, and general usefulness of sheep, as well as of their peculiar importance in relation to the craft honoured in the person of the newly appointed Lieutenant of the city of London. Heywood was famous for his wide, miscellaneous, and often startling information.
We have already seen how, in the first blush and budding of the Elizabethan spring, George Peele treated the tale of the judgement of Paris; on the same legend Heywood based one of his semi-dramatic dialogues; it remains to be seen how, in the late autumn of the great age of our dramatic literature, Shirley returned to the same theme in his _Triumph of Beauty_, privately produced about 1640. It is a regular masque, for which the familiar story serves as a thread; the G.o.ddesses and their symbolical attendants, or else the Graces and the Hours with Hymen and Delight, performing the dances, while a company of rustic swains of Ida, who come to relieve the melancholy of the princely shepherd, form a comic antimasque. It has, however, grown to the proportions of a small play. The comic characters also study a piece on the subject of the golden fleece, reminiscent, like _Narcissus_, of the _Midsummer Night"s Dream_.
This, as Mr. Fleay supposes, may well be satirical of some of the city pageants, though it is best to be cautious in discovering definite allusions. But the success of such a piece as the present, in so far as it was dependent on the _libretto_, demanded a power of light and graceful lyric versification which was not conspicuous among the many gifts of the author. The comic business is frankly amusing, but the long speeches of the G.o.ddesses can hardly have appeared less tedious to a contemporary audience than they do to the reader to-day.
I may also notice here a regular short pastoral in three acts, inserted by Robert Baron in his romance ???t?pa??????, _or the Cyprian Academy_, printed in 1647. It is ent.i.tled _Gripus and Hegio, or the Pa.s.sionate Lovers_, and relates the loves of these characters for Mira and Daris; while we also find the familiar roguish boy, less amusing and of stricter propriety than usual; a chorus of fairies who discourse cla.s.sical myth; Venus, Cupid, Hymen, and Echo; and the habitual concomitants of pastoral commonplace. The romance also contains a masque ent.i.tled _Deorum Dona_, in which figure allegorical abstractions such as Fame, Fortune, and the like.
It is in no wise pastoral.
Another pastoral show of some elaboration, and of a higher order of poetry than most of those we have been considering, is Sir William Denny"s _Shepherds" Holiday_, printed from ma.n.u.script in the _Inedited Poetical Miscellany_ of 1870. The piece appears to date from 1653, and is only slightly dramatic so far as plot is concerned. It is of an allegorical cast, the various characters typifying certain virtues, or rather temperaments--virginity, love and so forth--as is elaborately expounded in the preface.
A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert c.o.x, partaking more or less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring.
This is the case, for instance, in the _Acteon and Diana_, published in 1656.[352] The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover b.u.mpkin, a huntsman, and the dance of the country la.s.ses round the May-pole. Then enters Acteon with his huntsmen, who is followed by Diana and her nymphs.
Upon the dance of these last Acteon, returning, breaks in unawares, and is rebuked by the G.o.ddess, who then retires with her nymphs to a glade in the forest. They are in the act of despoiling themselves for the bath when they are again surprised by Acteon. Incensed, the G.o.ddess turns upon him, and he flees before her anger, only to return once more upon the dance of the bathers in the shape of a hart, and fall at their feet a prey to his own hounds. The verse, whether lyric or dramatic, is of a mediocre description, and the piece, if it was ever actually performed, no doubt depended for success upon the music, dancing, and scenery. It is a curious fact, to which Davenant"s work among others is witness, that the nominally private representation of this kind of musical ballet was permitted, while the regular drama was under strict inhibition. At any time, however, it must have been difficult to represent such a piece as the present without sacrificing either propriety or tradition.
Another similar composition, headed "The Rural Sports on the Birthday of the Nymph Oenone," is printed together with the above. In it the strains of the polished pastoral are varied by the humours of the clown Hobbinall, the whole ending with a speech by Pan and a dance of satyrs.
One obvions omission from the above catalogue will have been noticed. The reason thereof is sufficiently obvious; and the following section will endeavour to repair it.
II
In Milton"s contribution to the fashionable masque literature of his day we approach work the poetic supremacy of which has never been called in question, and whose other qualities, lying properly beyond the strict application of that term, critics have habitually vied with one another to extol. No one, indeed, for whom poetry has any meaning whatever, can turn from the work of Peele, Heywood, and Shirley, of Ben Jonson even, to the early works of Milton, to such comparatively immature works as _Arcades_ and _Comus_, without being conscious that they belong to an altogether different level of poetical production. It was no mere conventional commendation, such as we may find prefixed to the works of any poetaster of the time, that Sir Henry Wotton addressed to the author of the Ludlow masque: "I should much commend the Tragical [i.e. dramatic] part, if the Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our Language[353]."
The two poems we have now to consider were, in all probability, written within a short while of one another, and the second antic.i.p.ated by more than three years the composition of _Lycidas_. But the connexion between the two is not one of date only, nor even of the spectacular demand it was the end of either to meet. It may, namely, in the absence of any definite evidence, be with much plausibility presumed that the impulse to the entertainment, of which as we are told _Arcades_ formed a part, originated with that very Lady Alice Egerton and her two young brothers who, the following year probably, bore the chief parts in _Comus_. The entertainment was presented at Harefield in honour of their grandmother, the Countess Dowager of Derby. This lady, probably somewhat over seventy at the time, was the honoured head of a large family. The daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, born about 1560, she married first Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, patron of the company of actors with whom Shakespeare"s name is a.s.sociated; and secondly, after his early death in 1594, the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, who rose by rapid steps to be Viscount Brackley shortly before his death in 1617. The span of a human life appears strange when measured by the rapidly moving events of the English renaissance. The wife of Shakespeare"s patron, who may have witnessed the early ventures of the Stratford lad at the time of his first appearance on the London stage--the "Amarillis" of _Colin Clout_, with whom, and with her sisters "Phillis" and "Charillis," Spenser claimed kinship, and to whom he dedicated his _Tears of the Muses_ in 1591--lived to see her grandchildren perform for her amus.e.m.e.nt in the reign of the first Charles an entertainment for which their music-master Lawes had requisitioned the pen of the future author of _Paradise Lost_.
_Arcades_, or "the Arcadians," can hardly be dignified by the name of a masque; it is the mere embryo of the elaborate compositions which were at the time fashionable under that name, and of which Milton was to rival the constructional elaboration in his pastoral entertainment of the following year. It rather resembles such amoebean productions as we find introduced into the stage plays of the time; and was, no doubt, as the superscription explicitly informs us, but "Part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dowager of Darby." Nevertheless it is complete and self-contained, and to speak of it, as Professer Ma.s.son does, as "part, and part only, of a masque," is to give a wholly false impression; for, whatever the rest of the entertainment may have been, there is not the least reason to suppose that it had any connexion or relation with the portion that has survived. This runs to a little over one hundred lines. A group of nymphs and shepherds, coming from among the trees of the garden, approach the "seat of State" where sits the venerable Countess, whom they address in a song. As this ends their progress is barred by the Genius of the Wood, who delivers a long speech.[354] This is followed by a song introducing the dance, after which a third song brings the performance to a close. It cannot be honestly said that the bulk of this slender poem is of any very transcendent merit; but the final song stands apart from the rest, and deserves notice both on its own account and for the sake of that to which it served as herald:
Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more By sandy Ladons Lillied banks; On old Lycaeus or Cyllene h.o.a.r Trip no more in twilight ranks; Though Erymanth your loss deplore A better soyl shall give ye thanks.
From the stony Maenalus Bring your Flocks, and live with us; Here ye shall have greater grace To serve the Lady of this place, Though Syrinx your Pans Mistres were, Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.
Such a rural Queen All Arcadia hath not seen.
Here we have, if nothing else, promise at least of the melodies to be, as also of that harmonious interweaving of cla.s.sical names which long years after was to lend weight and dignity to the "full and heightened style" of the epic. One other point in connexion with the poem is noteworthy, the quality, namely, in virtue of which it claims our attention here. It is, indeed, not a little curious that on the only two occasions on which Milton was called upon to produce something of the order of the masque, he cast his work into a more or less pastoral form; and this in spite of the fact that, as we have seen, the form was by no means a prevalent one among the more popular and experienced writers. It would appear as though his mind turned, through some natural bent or early a.s.sociation, to the employment of this form; an idea which suggests itself all the more forcibly when we find him, a few years later, setting about the composition of a conventional lament in this mode on a young college acquaintance, and producing, through his power of alchemical trans.m.u.tation, one of the greatest works of art in the English language.
It was, no doubt, in the earlier months of 1634, while his friend Lawes was engaged on the gorgeous and complicated staging and orchestration of the _Triumph of Peace_ and the _Coelum Britannic.u.m_, that Milton composed the poem which perhaps more than any other has made readers of to-day familiar with the term "masque." In the second of the elaborate productions just named--a poem, be it incidentally remarked, which does no particular credit to the pen of its sometimes unsurpa.s.sed author, Tom Carew, but in the presentation of which the king and many of his chief n.o.bles deigned to bear a part--minor roles had been a.s.signed to the two sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, namely, the Viscount Brackley and Master Thomas Egerton. When the earl shortly afterwards went to a.s.sume the Presidency of the Welsh Marches, it was these two who, together with their sister the Lady Alice, bore the central parts in the masque performed before the a.s.sembled worthies of the West in the great hall of Ludlow Castle. The ages of the three performers ranged from eleven to thirteen, the girl, who was the eighth daughter of the marriage, being the eldest.
It must have been a gay and imposing sight that greeted the spectators in the grim old border fortress, the gaunt ruins of which may yet be seen, but which had at that date already rubbed off some of its medieval ruggedness as a place of defence. Though necessarily less elaborate and costly than the performances in London, no pains were spared to make the spectacle worthy of the occasion, and it must have appeared all the more splendid in contrast to its surroundings, presented as it was in the great hall in which met the Council of the Western Marches in the distant town upon the Welsh border. Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour and dramatic contrast of historical a.s.sociation, for in this very hall just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London.
I do not propose to enter into any detailed account of the manner in which we may suppose the masque to have been performed, nor into the literary history of the poem itself; to do so would be a work of supererogation in view of the able discussion of the whole subject from the pen of Professor Ma.s.son. The debts Milton owed to the _Somnium_ of Putea.n.u.s, to Peele"s _Old Wives" Tale_ and to Fletcher"s _Faithful Shepherdess_, are now all more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions. The second contains a remarkable parallel to the search of the two brothers for their lost sister, which it is difficult to suppose fortuitous; while many pa.s.sages might be cited to prove Milton"s close acquaintance with Fletcher"s poem[355].
The masque as performed at Ludlow Castle probably differed in one important particular from the form in which we know it, and which is that in which it left Milton"s hand. This form is attested by the original quarto edition, by the texts of the Poems of 1645 and 1673, and by Milton"s ma.n.u.script draft in the volume preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge. The variant form is found in the ma.n.u.script at Bridgewater House, reputed to be in Lawes" handwriting, which seemingly represents the acting version. In Milton"s text the scene discovered is a wild wood; the attendant Spirit descends, or enters, and at once launches out into a long speech in blank verse. Lawes seems to have thought that it would be more appropriate for the Spirit--that is, for himself, for it appears that he took the part--to open the performance with a song, and consequently transferred to this place the first thirty-six lines of the final lyrical speech of the Spirit, subst.i.tuting the words "From the heavens" for Milton"s "To the ocean." The change was doubtless effective, and was skilfully made; yet one cannot help feeling that some of the magic of the poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his friends, he at length decided, with Milton"s consent, to send it forth into the world in its slender quarto garb.
A brief a.n.a.lysis will serve to reveal the lines upon which the piece is constructed, and to show how far it follows the traditions respectively of the drama and the masque. The introductory speech puts the audience in possession of the situation, and informs them how the wood is haunted by Comus and his crew, himself the son of Bacchus and Circe, and how they seek to trick unwary pa.s.sengers into drinking of the fateful cup which shall transform them to the likeness of beasts and, driving all remembrance of home and friends from their imaginations, leave them content "to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty." Wherefore the Spirit is sent to guide the steps of those "favoured of high Jove," and save them from the wiles of the fleshly G.o.d. Announcing that he goes to a.s.sume "the weeds and likeness of a swain," so as to perform his charge unknown, the Spirit leaves the stage, which is at once invaded by Comus and his rout. A brilliant speech by the G.o.d, preceding the first measure, ill.u.s.trates the strange but yet not infrequent irony of fate by which it has happened that the most puritanical of poets have thrown the full weight of their best work into the opposing scale, and clothed vice in magic colours to outdo the richest fancies of the libertine. No doubt this reckless adorning of sin was intentional on Milton"s part; he painted the pleasures of ???? in their most seductive colours, that the triumph of virtue might appear by so much the greater, fancying that it was enough to a.s.sert that final victory, and failing, like most preachers, to perceive that unless it was made psychologically and artistically convincing the total effect would be the very reverse of that which he intended. If we compare the speech of Comus with that of the Lady on her first appearance, we shall hardly escape the conclusion that then, as indeed always, Milton had a mere schoolboy"s idea of "plot," as of some combination of events to be infused with the breath of life at his own will, and from without, not such as should spring from the fundamental elements of the characters themselves.
In the midst of dance and revel Comus interrupts his followers:
Break off, break off, I feel the different pace Of some chast footing neer about this ground;
and the crew vanishes among the trees as the Lady enters alone and narrates how she lost her brothers at nightfall in the wood, and attracted by the sounds of mirth has bent hither her steps in the hope of finding some one to direct her. She then sings a song by way of attracting her brothers" attention, should they chance to be near. As she ends Comus re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father"s shepherd Thirsis; and on hearing how they have parted company with their sister, tells of Comus and his enchantments, and arming his hearers with hemony, powerful against all spells, guides them to the hall of the sorcerer. The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of Comus, "set out with all manner of deliciousness," where the G.o.d and his rabble are feasting. On one side we may imagine an open arcade giving on to the banks of the Severn, silvery in the moonlight, the cool purity of its waters contrasting with the rich jewelled light and perfumed air within.
We see the Lady seated in an enchanted chair, while before her stands the magician, wand in hand, offering her wine in a crystal goblet. Then follows the dialogue in which the Lady defends her virtue against the blandishments of Comus, till at last her brothers, followed by the spirit-shepherd, rush in and disperse the revellers. The Lady is now found to be fixed like marble in the chair of enchantment, but the attendant Spirit shows his resource by calling to their help the virgin G.o.ddess of the stream:
Sabrina fair Listen where thou art sitting Under the gla.s.sie, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of Lillies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair, Listen for dear honour"s sake, G.o.ddess of the silver lake, Listen and save.
Thus conjured in some of the most perfectly musical lines in the language the daughter of Locrine rises from her waves, and enters the hall with a song, attended by her obedient nymphs. Having broken the spell and freed the captive Lady, she at once departs with her train, and after another speech by the Spirit, the scene changes to the town and castle of Ludlow, a bevy of shepherds dancing in the foreground. After these have concluded their measure, the wanderers enter, still guided by the spirit-shepherd, who presents them safe and sound to their parents. Then follows another dance, and the Spirit, throwing off, we may presume, his pastoral disguise, launches into his final speech:
To the Ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that ly Where day never shuts his eye;
concluding:
Mortals that would follow me, Love vertue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to clime Higher than the Spheary chime; Or if Vertue feeble were, Heav"n it self would stoop to her.
Such is the bare outline, the skeleton of the piece; what, we cannot help wondering, was it like when it first appeared clothed in the beauty of the flesh and inspired with the spirit of song? Its fashion and its form we have indeed yet before us, though nothing can again quicken it into the life it enjoyed for one brief hour nearly three hundred years ago. We must be thankful that we count the poem itself among our treasures, and be content to confine our inquiry to it. It is, after all, to the accidents of its production as the body to the robes that adorn it.
It must be confessed that outwardly at least _Comus_ has but little connexion with pastoral. The habit of the Spirit, the disguise of the magician, the dance in the third scene, these are the only points serving to connect the poem with pastoral tradition in any formal manner. It is not, however, on account of these that _Comus_ has been commonly a.s.signed to the same category as the _Faithful Shepherdess_ and _Lycidas_, but rather because its whole tone, its mode, one might almost say, is essentially pastoral, and because it is directly dependent upon previous pastoral work.
It has been the fashion to praise _Comus_ above all other masques whatever, and from the point of view of the poetry it contains it would be idle to dispute its supremacy. But there are other considerations. As a masque proper, and from the point of view of what had come to be expected of such compositions, how does it stand? I am not here concerned to inquire how far the term can with strict propriety be applied to the piece, a question which may be left to the somewhat arid region of the formal cla.s.sification of literature. The points in which it resembles the regular spectacular masques, as well as those in which it differs from them, will be alike evident from the a.n.a.lysis given above. It may, however, be well to put in a caution against the manner in which some writers on the masque seek to make their distinctions appear more clearly defined than they in reality are by declaring _Comus_ to be not a masque at all but a play. It is no more a regular play than it is a strict masque, but a dramatic composition containing elements of both in almost equal proportions.
That the songs are for the most part exquisite, that they were worthily set to music and adequately rendered; that the measures, the dance of the revellers in their half-brutish disguises, the antimasque of country folk, and the final or main dance of the wanderers, were effective; that the whole was graceful, complete and polished, is either self-evident to-day, or may with reason be inferred. The scenery, too, must have been striking; the dreary forest, its darkness just relieved by the half-seen "glistering" forms; the heavy drug-like splendour of the enchanted palace and the cold moonlight outside; the bright, fresh sunshine, lastly, dew-washed, of the early morning; there were here a series of pictures the contrasts of which must have added to their individual effect. The scene, the song and the measure, these form, indeed, the very stuff that masques are made of. But Milton"s poem offered more than this; and it may well be questioned how far this more was of a nature to recommend it to the tastes of his audience, or indeed to heighten rather than to diminish its merits as a work of literature and art. There was, in the first place, a philosophical and moral intention, which, however veiled in fanciful imagery and clothed in limpid verse, is yet not content to be an inspiring principle and artistic occasion of the poem, but obtrudes itself directly in the length of some of the speeches; refuses, that is, to subserve the aesthetic purpose, and endeavours to divert the poetic beauty to its own non-aesthetic ends. In the second place, and probably of greater importance as regards the actual success of the piece on the stage, it contained somewhat of dramatic emotion, of incident which depended for its value upon its effect on the characters involved, which was ill served by the spectacular machinery and necessary limitations of the composition, while at the same time it must have interfered with the opportunity for mere sensuous effect which it was the main business of the masque to afford. The weight which different persons will attach to these objections will no doubt vary with their individual temperaments, their susceptibility to the magical charm of the verse, their sense of artistic propriety, and the degree to which they are able to recall in imagination the conditions of a bygone form of artistic presentation. I speak for myself when I say that, in fitness for the particular end it had to serve, Milton"s poem appears to me to be surpa.s.sed, for instance, by the best of Jonson"s masques, no less than it surpa.s.ses them, and all others of their kind, in the poetical beauty of the verse, whether of the "tragical" or lyrical portions.
Since I have ventured to formulate certain objections against an acknowledged masterpiece, it will be well that I should define as clearly as possible the ground upon which those objections are based. I have, I hope, sufficiently emphasized my dissent from that school of criticism which condemns a work of art for not conforming to one or another of a series of fixed types. That _Comus_ lies, so to speak, midway between the drama and the masque, and partakes of the nature of either, is not, by any inherent law of literary aesthetics, a blemish; what in my view is a blemish, and that a serions one, is that the means employed are not calculated to the demands of the situation. The struggle of the Lady against the subtle enchanter, the search of the brothers for their lost sister, the safe event of their wanderings, are all points which, however simple in themselves, yet excite our interest; however certain we may feel that virtue in the person of the Lady will never fall to the allurements of Comus, they neither of them become a mere abstraction. That is to say that, little as there may be of plot, the interest is that of the drama, an interest really felt in the fate of the characters; while the medium adopted is that of the masque, with its spectacular machinery, even if not in its regular and orthodox form. It follows that the dramatic interest is a clog on the scenic elaboration of the form, while the form is necessarily inadequate to the rendering of the content.
It is significant that in all the early editions the piece is merely styled "A Maske Presented At Ludlow Castle"; the t.i.tle of _Comus_ was first affixed by Warton. It was an obvious t.i.tle for a critic to adopt; it is probably the last that the author would himself have thought of choosing. Had it been named contemporaneously, and after the fashion of the masques at court, the t.i.tle of the _Triumph of Virtue_ could not but have suggested itself. This is indeed the very theme of the piece. Virtue in the person of the Lady, guarded by her brothers, watched over by the attendant Spirit, aided at need by the nymph Sabrina, triumphant over the blandishments and temptations of fancy and of sense in the persons of Comus and his followers; that is the subject of the masque. It is a subject finely and suitably conceived for spectacular ill.u.s.tration, and possesses a moral after Milton"s own heart. The closing lines of the poem, already quoted, give admirable expression to the motive. Were the subject, on the other hand, to be treated dramatically, then the character of the Lady, virtue at grip with evil, was worthy to exercise--had; indeed, in varying forms long exercised--the highest dramatic genius. But in this direction lay, consciously or unconsciously, one of Milton"s most evident limitations, and had he attempted to give full dramatic expression to the idea it is not improbable that the experiment would have resulted in undeniable failure. From such an attempt he was, however, debarred by the terms of his commission, which demanded not a drama, but a spectacular performance. Yet in spite of this Milton"s conception of the piece is, as we have seen, essentially dramatic, and consequently in so far as the means prevented the due fulfilment of that conception in so far must the Lady necessarily fall short of the adequate realization of her high role.
The action is too much abstracted, the characters too allegorical, to satisfy in us the dramatic expectations which they nevertheless call forth; while, on the other hand, they remain too concrete and individual to be adequately rendered by purely spectacular means.
These considerations have an important bearing upon the other objection which I ventured to bring forward, that of moralizing; for it cannot be argued, I imagine, that the direct expression of philosophical or ethical ideas is in any way illegitimate in the masque proper, any more than it is in the choric ode. But, as I have said, Milton--no doubt intentionally, though the point is irrelevant--has raised dramatic issues and dramatic emotions, and consequently by the laws of the drama, that is, by his success in satisfying those emotions, he must be judged. All speeches therefore introduced with a directly moral and philosophical rather than a dramatic end must be p.r.o.nounced artistic solecisms. Whether Milton has been guilty of such undramatic interpolations, such lapses from the one end of art, may be left to the individual judgement of each reader to determine; for my own part I cannot conceive that any doubt should exist.
But even if we pa.s.s over what some readers will be inclined to dismiss as a mere theoretical objection, there are other charges which these same pa.s.sages will have to meet. Those who have borne with me in my remarks on the _Aminta_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_, will probably also agree with me here, when I say that to me at least there is something not altogether pleasing in Milton"s presentment of virtue. I should add at once, that to place Milton"s poem on an ethical level with either of the above-mentioned pieces would, of course, be preposterous. It is impossible to doubt the severe chast.i.ty of Milton"s own ideal, and to compare it for one moment to the conventional _onesta_ which replaced virtue in Ta.s.so"s world, or with the nauseous unreality of the puppet Fletcher sought to enthrone in its place, would be to commit an uncritical outrage. Nevertheless, the expression Milton chose to give to his ideal cannot, therefore, lay claim to privilege. That expression had become intimately a.s.sociated with pastoral convention, and he accepted it along with much else from his predecessors. I am not aware of any reason why spectators should have been prejudiced otherwise than in favour of the Lady Alice Egerton; but she is, nevertheless, careful to take the first opportunity of informing them, with much earnest protestation, of her quite remarkable purity and virtue, implying as it were a nave surprise at having arrived unsullied at the perilous age of thirteen. The stilted affectation of this self-conscious innocence is perhaps less evident in the scene in which we should most readily look for it--that, namely, in which the Lady defends herself from the persuasions of the Sorcerer, where a certain fervour of feeling raises her utterances above a merely colourless level--than in the long soliloquy in which she indulges on first appearing on the stage. Something of the same disagreeable quality is present in the rather mawkish discussion between her two young brothers. Milton, who is entirely untouched, either with the levity of Ta.s.so or the cynicism of Fletcher, was undoubtedly himself wholly unconscious that any such charge could be brought against his work. It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a curious want of delicacy, which in his later work results at times in pa.s.sages of offensively bad taste[356]. As yet it is hardly responsible for anything worse than a confused conception in the poet"s imagination. [Greek: ???ta ?a?a?? t??? ?a?a????], and the allegory is an old one whereby virtue appears as the tamer of the beasts of the wild. It is, however, to those alone who are innocent of evil that belongs the faery talisman. The virtue, knowing of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence, but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler, with less of the glamour of romance reflected from its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels instinctively that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch forth into a protestation of her chast.i.ty. Nothing, of course, would be easier than by means of a little judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule upon the whole of Milton"s conception of virtue in woman, and nowhere is it more needful than in such a case as the present to remember the fundamental maxim that bids one take the position one is attacking at its strongest. Nevertheless, putting aside for the moment all questions of art and all considerations of taste, there remains a question worthy of being fully and carefully stated, and of being honestly entertained. Milton has deliberately penned pa.s.sages of smug self-conceit upon a subject whose delicacy he was apparently incapable of appreciating, and these pa.s.sages he has placed, to be spoken in her own person, in the mouth of a child just pa.s.sing into the first dawn of adolescence, thereby outraging at once the innocence of childhood and the reticence of youth. Is it possible to pretend that this is an action upon which moral censure has no word to say[357]?
It would hardly have been necessary to emphasize this point of view, or to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the n.o.bleness of Milton"s conception and the brilliance, within certain limits, of the execution; but when we are further challenged to admire the "moral grandeur" of the figure in which virtue is honoured, there are some at least who will feel tempted to reply in the significant words: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much!"
A word may be said finally as to the quality of the verse. I need not repeat that it is exquisite, that the music of it is like a full stream overflowing the rich pastures; what I am concerned to maintain is, that it is not for the most part of Milton"s best. In the first place, what, for want of a better name, I have called Milton"s moralizing is a blemish upon the poetic as it is upon the dramatic merits of the piece. The muse of poetry, like all her sisters, is not slow in avenging herself of a divided allegiance. By the cynical irony of fortune already noticed, where Milton would most impress us with his moral he becomes least poetical. There is, it is true, hardly a speech or a song which does not contain lines worthy to rank with any in the language, from the opening words:
Before the starry threshold of Joves Court,
to the final couplet:
Or if Virtue feeble were, Heav"n it self would stoop to her.