lyric; he touches nature with human feelings. Take his description of a brook:-- "The current that with gentle murmur glides Thou know'st, being stopp'd impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage, And so by many winding nooks he strays With willing sport to the wild ocean." The brook is gentle; then it becomes angry; then it is pacified and begins to sing; then it stops to kiss the sedge; then it is a pilgrim; and it walks _willingly_ on to the ocean. So in his sonnet:-- "Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain top with sovereign eye; Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face; And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with his disgrace; Even so my sun one early morn did shine, With all triumphant splendor on my brow; But out, alack! he was but one hour mine; The region cloud hath masked him from me now; Yet him, for this, my love no whit disdaineth, Suns of this world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth." From Shakespeare, the marvel of dramatic genius, turn to Milton, and we find the opposite tendency unfolded. The "Paradise Lost" is indeed dramatic in form, with different characters and dialogues, in hell, on earth, and in heaven. But in essence it is undramatic. Milton is never for a moment lost in his characters; his grand and noble soul is always appearing. Every one speaks as Milton would have spoken had Milton been in the same place, and looked at things from the same point of view. Sin and Satan, for example, both talk like John Milton. Sin is very conscientious, and before she will unlock the gate of hell she is obliged to argue herself into a conviction that it is right to do so. Satan, she says, is her father, and children ought to obey their parents; so, since he tells her to unlock the gate, she ought to do so. Death reproaches Satan, in good set terms, for his treason against the Almighty; and Satan, as we all know, utters the noblest sentiments, and talks as Milton would have talked, had Milton been in Satan's position.[1] Coming down nearer to our own time, we find a duad of great English poets, usually associated in our minds,--Byron and Scott.