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by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.1 Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; 2 shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

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anger. Anger must be limited and confined both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination. and habit to be angry may be attempered. and calmed. Secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repressed, or at least refrained from doing mischief. Thirdly, how to raise anger or appease anger in another.

For the first; there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life. And the best time to do this is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca saith well, That anger is like ruin, which breaks itself upon that it falls. The Scripture exhorteth us to possess our souls in patience. Whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees;

. . . animasque in vulnere ponunt*

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

For the second point; the causes and motives of anger are chiefly three. First, to be too sensible of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and therefore tender and delicate persons must needs be oft angry; they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little sense of. The next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered to be, in the circumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much or more than

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the hurt itself. And therefore when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much. Lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger. Wherein the remedy is, that a man should have, as Consalvo was wont to say, telam honoris crassiorem.1 But in all refrainings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time; and to make a man's self believe, that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come, but that he foresees a time for it; and so to still himself in the meantime, and reserve it. To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution. The one, of extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate 2 and proper; for communia maledicta 3 are

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nothing so much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets; for that makes him not fit for society. The other, that you do not peremptorily break off, in any business, in a fit of anger; but howsoever you show bitterness, do not act anything that is not revocable.

For raising and appeasing anger in another; it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are frowardest and worst disposed, to incense them. Again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt. And the two remedies are by the contraries. The former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business; for the first impression is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will.

THE CLASSICAL EPIC: PARADISE LOST

To compare Beowulf with Paradise Lost is to recognize the need for a two-fold division of the epic: the race epic, or "epic of growth," and the "epic of art," the work of an individual poet. Both treat of big events in an exalted manner and both are concerned with characters or personages sufficiently imposing to stand out conspicuously. In the one case, however, we have an epic evolving itself slowly as it is passed around by oral tradition, the outcome of the story-telling habit in primitive society; in the other, a written epic carefully planned and executed by a poet who is consciously an artist in an enlightened age of reflection and culture. The Iliad and Beowulf represent the race epic; Virgil's Eneid and Milton's Paradise Lost are art forms, imitated from the older models.

John Milton was among the great English poets the one best fitted to compose an epic. As a young man he was earnest, serious minded, and strong willed, with a keen appreciation of artistic beauties and an imagination that soared into the realm of ideals. Leaving the University he continued to study eagerly and composed the so-called Minor Poems. In them he revealed the sensitiveness to tone and color, the mastery of form, and the depth of insight into life that are among his greatest gifts as a poet. When the Civil War drew him for a time from poetry into political life to aid the cause of Cromwell, he had the opportunity to know great men and to experience bitter conflicts and stirring scenes, the stuff of which epic poems are made.

With the Restoration (1660) Milton was forced to cease political activity and withdraw to the country. There, despite the handicap of blindness, he pressed on to carry out what had for years been his ambition, to "leave something so written to after times as they should not willingly let it die." Putting aside King Arthur as a subject, he chose a theme of universal interest, the Fall of Man, a theme that challenged his imagination and idealism. He wrote Paradise Lost (1667) "to justify the ways of God to man." It was a vast theme, conceived by a lofty imagination, and given eloquent expression by a poet who had a remarkable command of the varied music of English rhythms.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

PARADISE LOST

THE VERSE

The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to thir own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have exprest them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rime both in longer and shorter Works, as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of it self, to all judicious eares, triveal and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another; not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimcing.

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THE ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST BOOK

The first Book proposes first in brief the whole Subject, Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise where

in he was plac't: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many Legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his Crew into the great Deep. Which action past over, the Poem hasts into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, describ'd here not in the Center (for Heaven and Earth may be suppos'd as yet not made, certainly not yet accurst) but in a place of utter darknesse, fitliest call'd Chaos: Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning Lake, thunder-struck and astonisht, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in Order and Dignity lay by him; they confer of thir miserable fall. Satan awakens all his Legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded; They rise, thir Numbers, array of Battel, thir chief Leaders nam'd, according to the Idols known afterwards in Canaan and the Countries adjoyning. To these Satan directs his Speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new World and new kind of Creature to be created, according to an ancient Prophesie or report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this visible Creation, was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this Prophesie, and what to determin thereon, he refers to a full Councell. What his Associates thence attempt. Pandemonium the Palace of Satan rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: The infernal Peers there sit in Counsel.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our

woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

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Sing, Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed

In the beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth

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Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd

Fast by the oracle of God, I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian mount,1 while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rime. And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all temples th' upright heart and pure,

Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first

Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,

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Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast

abyss,

And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is

dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the height of this great argu

ment

I may assert 2 Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

Say first (for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view,

Nor the deep tract of Hell) say first what

cause

Mov'd our grand parents, in that happy

state,

Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off 30 From their Creator, and transgress his will

For one restraint, lords of the world besides.

Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?

1 Mount Helicon, used as 2 vindicate

a symbol for Greek

poetry.

Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile

Stir'd up with envy and revenge, deceiv'd The Mother of Mankind, what time his pride

Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his host

Of rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equal'd the Most High, If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim 41 Against the throne and monarchy of God Rais'd impious war in Heav'n and battle proud,

With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,

With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition; there to dwel! In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures

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