is the essential fact in the history of man's felicity, as it is the very gate to the celestial country, angels may feel a peculiar delight in an event so singular, and connected with infinite results. Although it is more blessed for the saints of God to be confirmed in their faith, and perfected in their character, than that they should continue in the infancy of their nature, still there is a uniformity in their experience, and they are daily producing the same natural fruits of holiness, and enjoying the same fruits of happiness and glory. It is probable that, like ourselves, angels are affected by contrast; and what contrast can be more striking than that exhibited by the impenitent and the penitent? Heretofore man's face was directed toward the regions of perdition: now he is earnestly struggling-he is agonizing to enter at the strait gate. Heretofore sin was his element, and his whole soul was bent to work wickedness: now the unvarying bias of his thoughts and his feelings, the constant tendency of his actions, and the operations of the general system of his mind and his heart, are brought under the sanctifying control-the sacred dominion of the Divine Spirit! So entirely are his ruling principles and passions changed, that he may be said to have participated the divine nature; thus "old things are passed away, and behold all things are become new!" Is it wonderful, then, that angels should joyfully sympathize in such a purification of character, in such a transformation of the will, in such a splendid instance of the divine grace and goodness? How intense must be their pleasure, how glowing their joy, when they see those who were "in the wicked one," changed into the image of Christ, assimilating to their own celestial nature, and destined ultimately to rival themselves in the ardor of their love and devotion. The same is equally true of the ministers of Jesus Christ-their joy is augmented in proportion as their spirituality is increased; and the nearer they approach to heaven, the more their minds approximate to the celestial character-the more they know and feel the value of repentance.— Hall. REVIEWS. The Prose Works of John Milton, containing his principal Political, and Evangelical Pieces, with new Translations, and an Introduction. By GEORGE BURNET, late of Baliol College, Oxford. In two Volumes. London, 1809. pp. 449 and 623. A Selection from the English Prose Works of John Milton. In two Volumes. Boston, 1826. pp. 296 and 347. We are perhaps little aware of the quantity of writings in the ear lier periods of modern literature, and not always disposed to appreciate their excellence. Numerous as are the prosaic and poetic works of the present day, there is reason to believe, that they can scarcely be more abundant, than those of several former ages. We are told on good authority, that the longest life would not suffice to peruse only the histories that were composed in Europe, detailing the events of the seventeenth century. And with respect to merit, it is quite doubtful whether more authors of our own times will be known to From their proximity to us, and from the interest which they excite by means of local and temporary circumstances, connected with occasional improvements, we think too much of them as compared with their predecessors. We do not often scan their merits with impartiality. In the eagerness to seize every thing new, or newly vamped, and to learn passing incidents, most readers do injustice to that which is ancient. They would in general be more profited, were they to peruse the early standard works, than to be perpetually devouring all the productions, whether good or bad, which now issue from the press. The older works which they would be apt to meet with, would have received the sanction of Time; and thus only the most valuable would be read. Works of recent date remain to be proved and established by that impartial dispenser of fame. Besides, the thoughts of the earlier writers would be found in their "original brightness," and unimpaired strength; whereas, it would be a chance, in many instances, whether those of the later, having been so often transfused from book to book, would not have lost much of their spirit and raciness. In regard to the new in contrast with the antique, our sight, to use a similitude, might oftener be entertained with a light, trim, strait-laced dress of Indian cotton, than with a rich, loose, embroidered robe of damask silk. Or to speak in allusion to a still more thought of and palpable sense, (for we would make the opposition as strong as truth might warrant,) we should oftener be treated with sips of sherbet, than with potations of nectar. We are not condemning, or lightly estimating all modern writings. That would be mere affectation and folly. But we would give antiquity its due. Indeed a portion of it will exact the homage of all coming time, as it has done in respect to the past. As early English literature is concerned, respecting which our remarks are principally intended, a quaint style, a latinized construction, and long sentences, with some other faults, would be lost sight of in rich thoughts, strong sense, acute reasoning, and masculine eloquence. We have never before been so fully convinced of the correctness of the views above expressed, as in reading the prose works of John Milton. Nor ever before have we felt, how greatly inferior to those works, is much of that which we have been accustomed to peruse in approved later authors. Our astonishment has been equal to our delight, in knowing that English literature nearly two centuries ago can boast such productions. partial reading of Milton's prose, or an occasional acquaintance with an extract by no means gave us that impression respecting its character, which a full and leisurely attention has now imparted. Not that our delight over his pages has been unmingled with regret, or that we have not at times witnessed a spirit, A and detected a sentiment, opposed to propriety and to truth. He had his errors and some of them no light ones. But we have been surprised and gratified to observe so much general excellence of matter and manner, at a period in which our notions respecting English prose and English principles are, to say the least, not very exalted, though it may be, too often erroneous. It is no small praise that his prose is often equal to his poetry in power and sweetness, in majesty and grace; and that he has excelled perhaps the greatest of mankind in two departments of intellectual exertion so different as poetry and prose. It is the remark of a modern critic, that his prose writings abound with passages, compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. So we think and feel. It is an immortal honor that he advanced far beyond the knowledge or the views of the age in which he lived, and that he has even anticipated, on some subjects, the light of a distant futurity—a fact which his prose works incontrovertibly establish. If readers in general have been deterred from an intimate acquaintance with those works, by the antiquated cast which they possess, the unusual terms often employed, and by similar causes, it only shows that mankind are not apt to seek that gratification, which costs them some trouble or effort at first though they would be amply compensated afterwards. Or should it be thought that the comparative ignorance, on the part of readers, respecting these writings, casts a suspicion over their sterling worth, it is as natural to believe that mankind have been too greatly satisfied with his poetry to look for entertainment from his prose-that having been absorbed in the beauties of the former, they have neglected the latter-perhaps that they have never supposed nor wished it possible, for a mortal like themselves to be transcendently great in both. Yet such is the fact with Milton; and it is well known that he showed an equal capacity for the most opposite studies and pursuits-excelling in the knowl edge of mathematics, as well as in the composition of poetry-as remarkable for the solidity of his judgment as for the loftiness of his fancy-no less disposed to engage in active and self-denying efforts, than fond of calm and studious contemplation-as prompt, when duty called him, to mingle in the din and bustle of political dispute, as charmed with his "Lydean airs," and "the melting voice through mazes running." Of another thing we have been convinced by reading the prose of Milton, and that is, we are not to look to poetry alone, in the expectation of finding all the features of true greatness of learning in fact the full and real character even of a renowned poet. Prose in general affords us an ampler and more varied exhibition of talents. It speaks with less disguise and more directness as to the man himself, his character and ordinary feelings, the general reach of his understanding, and the extent of his knowledge. The power of producing poetry is incident to a certain temperament, situation of mind, or association of feelings that betray but part of the man-or the man as he is only at particular periods; not in his wonted state, not in the soberness of reason, but in a sort of frenzy, deluded himself, and deluding others. It is an art for which there is a natural aptitude in some men whether their genius be of the highest order or not, though if it be not high in them we think very little of its results. It shows not, therefore, the whole range of the mindof a truly great mind. For such a manifestation, we need that form of writing which can express simple truth of every kind, in the premises, as well as in the reasonings. In real poetry, it has been affirmed, that the premises are necessarily false, while the reasonings are designed to be just. The generality of men certainly, and even of poets most probably, must, we think, unlike Pope, more easily and freely express their thoughts, and of course stamp a more exact likeness of their intellect as to its entire power, in prose than in poetry; while at the same time the poet, if he is one, will be better known by means of his prose. There are, moreover, some subjects that never engage the poetic art. They were not made for poetry, nor poetry for them. Controversy, for instance, is one of those proscribed and irreducible subjects justly so considered by the Muses. Controversy, not to speak of its power in eliciting the truth, both manifests and strengthens the capacities of genius. * The sentiment on which we have insisted above is certainly true in the case of Milton. We may almost say with a contemporaneous journal, that we never knew him, till we were acquainted with his prose writings-either the man in reality, or the poet in his completeness. The directness, the ample illustrations, and the incidental auto-biography of his prose, have more than identified the man, and shed some additional rays of light and glory even on the poet. We must be permitted more than ever not only to admire his genius, but to contemplate with awe, if not with affection his moral qualities and his life. A more vigorous, dignified, bold, and independent writer and thinker never existed. And what is better, he was all incorruptible," and invincible, as an asserter of human rights and defender of civil and religious liberty. These and many other traits in his character, on which it is not our design 66 here to dwell, decisively appear from the prose of the great bard. His opinions on many subjects, particularly on politics, education, and human duties were new, and opposed to the spirit and principles of his day; but with a few exceptions, they are such as mankind with larger experience and increased light have generally approved, and such as have contributed essentially, though seldom ascribed to this source, to the enviable distinction of modern times in regard both to a theoretical and practical knowledge of those subjects. Whatever may be said of the generality of readers, there are a select few who believe and feel, that the world is not more indebted to Milton for the Paradise Lost, than for his inimitable Areopagitica. If the lately discovered work on Christian Doctrine, said to be Milton's, be really his, it would form indeed a melancholy addition to the exceptions, in regard to the correctness of his opinions on certain subjects, and those of high importance. But we here speak only of such productions as are undeniably his and have long been known to the public. It will appear from the extracts we shall soon introduce, as his history also proves, that the poet was deeply engaged in controversy. Controversy was indeed the burden of most of his prosaic productions. On Ecclesiastical Law, the Matrimonial Law, on the Tenure of the Magistrate, and on some other topics, he came in collision with most of the learning and genius not only of his countrymen, but of Europe. Except on the question of Divorce, and a few untenable positions in some other of his treatises, he conducted himself manfully and with singular success. His cause was a noble one-the cause of the English nation--of mankind -of human rights-of the human intelleet-of the enfranchisement wont" to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric taught out of the rule of Plato." "Milton," says Symmons, his celebrated biographer, "was a student and a poet, by the strong and almost irresistible impulse of his nature he was a polemic only on the rigid requisition of duty, and in violation of all his more benign and refined propensities. He plunged into controversy with the desperate resolution of a man who is settled and has bent up of that intelleet. No man was ever more sincere in any cause. No man more heartily detested ignorance, bigotry, baseness, tyranny, and slavery. No man ever laid a heavier hand on these enormities, or more completely stript them of their disguises. And we add, no man ever brought a greater share of erudition and eloquence to bear on the noble objects he had in view, or for the sake of them ever sacrificed more of personal present quiet, hope, and happiness, and more magnanimously submitted to the Each corporal agent to the terrible feat:" delay of lofty and favorite purposes. The truth, on many points before but he returns to his own proper little understood or believed, he inclination with the elasticity of a made as clear as the bright sky. bow on the rupture of its string. It must be owned, however, that His descent, if descent it may be the value of his thoughts was some- called, was with compulsion and times debased by an alloy of rude- laborious flight;' but we behold ness and acrimony in the manner. him, after a long immersion in the Controversy was then conducted in pool of discord, springing up like its bitterest style, and Milton was a pyramid of fire,' and showing us not free from the fault of the age. that in his proper motion he asHe offered an apology indeed for cends." It may seem strange that the employment of sarcasm and in- the greatest of poets could ever vective, and his provocations we appropriate his powers to controknow were great, but intemperate versy, or that he should have powand abusive language was unwor- ers for such an appropriation-that thy of his exalted mind. He did the votary and the favorite of the not, however, imitate all the gross- Muses could be the eager politician, ness of his adversaries. He was the cunning diplomatist, the caustic more decent, though not the less disputant, and the stern theologian severe. It was a cause of lament--that the hand which could deliation with him that he had fallen cately twine a chaplet of roses on such times; and that his duty around the brow of the Graces, obliged him to enter into "hoarse could lash a tyrant or tyrannical disputes," and the violence of the priesthood, with a whip of scorpiological and political collision. It ons. We do not easily associate opposed his love of ease, and inter- the smoothness of verse with the rupted his studies and the great roughness of controversy, and are works he was resolving to execute. apt to think that the spirit which is But he was devoted to freedom, congenial to the one, is abhorrent his courage was unquestioned, his from the other. Still the union physical tone was high, his tem- exists in the wonderful Milton, and perament was ardent, the cause was few readers of the Paradise Lost that of political and moral truth, of can have failed to remark, how Englishmen and mankind, and he much the qualities and the skill of hastened to the combat. He was, the disputant-how much the powmoreover, a master of the contro- erful reasoner,-the dextrous manversial pen, and a complete dialec- ager, and the knotty metaphysical tician, though his "logic" was theologian, are displayed in many |