Littell's Living Age/Volume 133/Issue 1720/A Dutch Milton
From The Cornhill Magazine.
A DUTCH MILTON.
The critics of the last century, whose idea of æsthetic analysis not unfrequently seems to have been to form a mosaic of such little bits of a poet as could in some degree be held to resemble little bits of earlier poets, found in Milton a wide field for their ingenious labor. With an extraordinary memory and a taste for poetry that far overflowed the conventional banks of English and classical literature, Milton, at the outset of his career, seems to have steeped his imagination in the fine thoughts of almost all the European poets, and to have occasionally combined or reproduced their felicities in his own verse. But when his blindness came upon him, and he was more and more thrown for refreshment back upon the stores of his memory, he was unable, and, perhaps, not anxious, to ascertain whether a noble fancy or a chord. of melody that floated in his brain was or was not his own in any sense but that of conquest. Like Goethe, he had the august arrogance of a supreme poet who is conscious that he confers immortality on a thought by stealing it, and that what is stolen leaves his lips so glorified in expression that it has become a new thing. A great deal of foolishness has been said about plagiarism; to plagiarize is the instinct, the characteristic audacity of almost every poet of the highest class. It is only when it is committed by a small poet or poetaster - in other words, when skill is wanted, and the hand of the thief is seen in the pocket of the owner - that the action becomes blamable, because contemptible. To carry out no further an argument that may to some readers seem paradoxical, it is at least certain, for praise or blame, that the later poems of Milton are studded with memories, more or less faint or vivid, of the works of numerous previous writers. The French didactic poet, Du Bartas, whether in the original or in the translation of Joshua Sylvester, supplied him with ideas; some fine images and a whole train of thought were taken from the richly colored 'Christ’s Victory and Triumph' of the younger Giles Fletcher; even Cowley's 'Davideis' was laid under contribution for 'Paradise Lost.' These suggestions and reminiscences have been frequently dwelt upon, but not so much attention has been paid to the still bolder appropriations Milton made from various foreign writers. Some notice, but to an inadequate extent, has, indeed, been taken of the influence on the great English epic of the "Adamo" of the Italian dramatist, J. B. Andreini, who died shortly before Milton commenced his great task. It is probable that a close study of Italian and Spanish literature would bring to light many more cases of Miltonic adaptation and suggestion. But the most full and, curious of all is one which has, indeed been frequently pointed out in a cursory manner, but never, to the knowledge of the present writer, been carefully investigated. This is the amount to which Milton was indebted in his sketch of the fall of the rebel angels to the choral drama of 'Lucifer,' by the Dutch poet Vondel.
The Dutch language was not so little studied in the beginning of the seventeenth century as it now is. Elizabeth, being in some sort looked upon as the head of the Reformed party throughout Europe, supplied help to the Netherlands in their revolt against Spain; and when the United Provinces, after their almost single-handed and heroic struggles, succeeded in establishing for themselves, not merely independence, but a foremost place among the states of Europe, there was a good deal of diplomatic coquetting between Holland and England before the ultimate jealousy and hatred set in. The sudden political start made by Holland was almost immediately succeeded by the creation of a brilliant literature. Within twenty years after the proclamation of the Federal Commonwealth of the Seven United Provinces, in 1581, all the greatest names in Dutch literature were born. It was a time of great imaginative revival all over the north of Europe. The same period saw the birth of Arrebo and of Stjernhelm, respectively destined to be the fathers of Danish and of Swedish poetry; and of Martin Opitz, in whom German literature threw out its first modern blossom. In England the great Elizabethan school was at its climax, and light and heat radiated from London through all the Reformed countries. But in Holland, more than anywhere else, all the elements of imaginative production seemed concentrated and intensified in a brief period of brilliance. A single century sufficed to include the rise and decadence of Dutch literature. The year of revolt, 1568, was the approximate commencement of this period. Philip van Marnix, a sort of Flemish Rabelais, is named as the first artificer of classic Dutch prose, and flourished about this time; but the real imaginative life of the period centres around a species of academy, founded at Amsterdam by the poet Samuel Coster, and fantastically entitled the Chamber of the Eglantine. This association took as its motto In Liefde Bloeiende (Blossoming in Love), and in process of time its earlier title was merged in the more familiar appellation of the 'Brothers Blossoming in Love.' This body made it its duty to collect within itself every young man who showed any tendency to poetic gift, and under its auspices the great Dutch poets one by one emerged into public notice. A taste for the drama had come from Spain, and the brothers took care to represent, in a half-private way, the dramatic productions of their poets. In 1600 a youth of nineteen was admitted among the Brothers whose genius was so far in advance of that of all his predecessors that he has been justly named the father of Dutch poetry. This was Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, of whom the voluble criticism of the day asserted that he was 'more ingenious than Euripides, more stately than Virgil, more sublime than Horace, more wanton than Anacreon, and more tender than Petrarch;' from which it may be gathered that he was a writer of great fluency and versatility. He was more than this; he was a full-blooded poet of the Renaissance, born, like Marlowe, out of his due time, and he strove, in strenuous opposition to the domestic genius of his fatherland, to introduce the rich and sensuous forms of the south. Travelling in his youth in Italy, with the avowed purpose of studying the antique, it was Sannazaro more than Theocritus, Tasso rather than Virgil, whom he followed and delighted in. On his return to Amsterdam he charmed and bewildered the 'Brothers Blossoming in Love' with his "Granida," the first and almost only Dutch pastoral drama, and shortly afterwards with his tragedies of "Geraardt van Velzen" and "Baeto." The school of poetry so commenced had a brief period of splendid activity. The unfortunate poetess, Tesselschade Visscher, whose 'Lines on the Nightingale,' both in turns of fancy and in measure, recall in a most curious way Shelley's 'Shylark,' added an element of lyrical passion and melody; Bredero, inspired without doubt by the brilliant successes of the English Elizabethan drama, founded Dutch comedy; Cats, who, although born as early as 1577, belongs to a later period of production than these his juniors, introduced that curious manner of domestic poetry which is identified with his name, and with the paintings of Teniers and De Hooghe; and lastly, the greatest of the writers which Holland has produced, Joost van den Vondel, composed that long series of works in almost every branch of poetic art which has given him a name in European literature. Vondel was born at Cologne on November 17, 1587, and died in his ninety-second year, February 5, 1679. This enormous life, which began before the death of Spenser, and only closed seven years after the birth of Addison, was devoted almost without a pause to the production of works of the imagination. The writings of Vondel form a library in themselves; and few poets, except the inexhaustible Lope de Vega, have exceeded him in the quantity of their writings. Among his thirty-two dramas two have remained universal favorites - his domestic tragedy of "Gijsbrecht van Aemstel," and his scriptural drama of 'Lucifer.'
As early as 1617 the Chamber 'Blossoming in Love' gave regular theatrical representations in a properly constituted building, and in 1637 a public theatre was opened, in which, on the first night, "Gijsbrech't van Aemstel" was produced. After the death of Hooft in 1647, Vondel continued to supply dramas for this house and it was for this purpose, when in his sixty-seventh year, that he wrote the 'Lucifer,' which was brought out with great display of scenic heavens, but after two nights withdrawn on account of the great expense it involved. It was then printed in 1654. Milton was living in the 'pretty garden-house opening into the park,' and still acting as secretary to the council of state, although his failing sight had led him, some months before, to suggest Marvell as his successor. In April peace had been made between England and the United Provinces, and there was a temporary cessation of hostilities. There can be little doubt that Milton kept himself well versed in the best current Dutch literature. There were frequent interchanges of scholarly civilities. Huyghens had been in London within Milton's hood burning incense to the English poets, and carrying back to Holland memories, and, alas! imitations of the great John Donne. Such a poet as Hooft, kindred in so many ways to Milton's own youth, divided as it was between Puritanism and the worship of beauty, between pietism and sensuous paganism, cannot but have attracted his learned and curious mind. Hence, one may well believe that immediately on the publication of Vondel's "Lucifer" a copy found its way to Milton; it may have been one of the last books he read with his own laded eyes. Four years afterwards — that is in 1658 — he is supposed to have commenced "Paradise Lost," and in 1667, thirteen years later than the Dutch drama, it saw the light.
We all know that, in the great English epic, the fall of the angels forms a vast episode in the story of the fall of man. In "Lucifer," the angels fill the foreground, and man is secondary and out of sight. The scene of the Dutch drama is laid in heaven itself, and never leaves it. Above, just beyond our vision, God remains apart, ineffable; below, the new-created human couple walk their paradise; but we never trespass on the domain of either. The persons are all angels, and when the curtain rises they are all blessed and serene. This apparent serenity, however, is the mask of a suspicion that has hardly ripened into ill-feeling. Belzebub and Belial are discovered in conversation when the drama opens; and we learn from the first that Apollyon has been sent by Lucifer, the stadholder of the states of Heaven, to make a closer investigation of Adam's bliss, and the condition in which God has placed him. Belial, leaning from the sheer heights, sees Apollyon rising from circle to circle, outspeeding the wind, and leaving a track of splendor behind him. He soars into the blue hyaline of heaven, while the celestial spheres almost pause upon their courses as they lean to gaze upon his countenance; he seems to them no angel, but a flying fire. At last, like a star, he alights on the rim of heaven, and bears in his hand a golden branch. Belzebub praises the blossom and fruit of this branch in very luscious alexandrines; its golden leaves are studded with aerial dew, and between them the jocund fruit glows with crimson and with gold. It would be a pity to rend it with the hands; the very sight of it fascinates the mouth. If such fruits can be eaten in Eden, the bliss of angels must give way to men. To this light hyperbole Apollyon responds eagerly and seriously, and his listeners are roused to enquire in what this felicity of man consists. He gives a very spirited and poetical account of his journey to the earth, and a vivid but rather rococo description of the wonders and beauties of the earthly paradise, which he praises as far more varied and exquisite than the heavenly. He passes to the subject most interesting to his hearers — the nature and functions of the inhabitants of this garden. It seems that at the moment that he fluttered on wide pinions over Eden, Adam was giving names to all the animals. Griffins and eagles were obedient to this man, and dragons and behemoth, and even leviathan, while the trees and bushes rang with melody. But of all marvels this has amazed him most, that the two inmates of the garden have power subtly to weave together body and soul, and create double angels, out of the same clay-flesh and bones. It is for this purpose, no doubt, that God has just made these two strange creatures, that he may reap from them a rich harvest of souls. Apollyon watches, with an agony of jealousy and longing, their joyous dalliance; and at last, with infinite pain, tears himself away from a scene in which he can have no part. But of all the beauties and wonders, he praises woman most, and grows so ecstatic that he declares, —
| Search all our angel bands, in beauty well arrayed, They will but monsters seem, by the dawn-light of a maid. | |
| Belz. | It seems you burn in love for this new womankind! |
| Apol. | My great wing-feather in that amorous flame, I find I’ve singed! ‘Twas hard indeed to soar up from below, |
| Belz. | But what can profit man this beauty that must fade,
And wither like a flower, and shortly be decayed? |
The description that closes with the above passage bears many striking points of resemblance to the fourth book of Milton's epic. What follows is contrary to the purpose of the English poet. Apollyon goes on to explain that an eternity is assured to mankind by a tree of immortal life which he has seen in the midst of Eden, by eating the fruit of which man will live forever, and the number and power of his children be eternally on the increase. The key-note of the drama is then struck, for Belzebub, quivering with jealousy, exclaims, -
| Man thus has power and scope to wax above our heads. |
At this moment a trumpet is heard, and the hosts of heaven assemble. Gabriel, "chief of the angelic guards," appears, attended with the chorus of cherubim, sent as herald from the throne of God. His message is to this effect: God has created man a little lower than the angels, in order that, in the process of time, he may ascend up the staircase of the world into the summit of uncreated light, the infinite glory. Though the spiritual race now seems to overtop all others, yet God has from eternity concluded to exalt the human race, and to transport them into a splendor which is not different from that of God. The eternal Word clothed in flesh and bone, anointed as Lord and Head and Judge, you shall see give law to all the troops of spirits, angels, and man, from his unshadowed kingdom. Then the clear flame of seraphim shall seem dark beside the godlike splendor of man. This is destiny, and an unrevokable destiny. A burst from the chorus —
| Whatever Heaven decrees shall please the heavenly host - |
softens the severity of Gabriel's demeanor, and he passes on to discuss the present state of the angelic orders. Vondel's conceptions in this respect are simply those of St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante: we seem to move in the fourteenth century, as we read of the inmost hierarchy of seraphim, cherubim, and thrones; of the second of dominations, virtues, powers, and the outer hierarchy of principalities, archangels, and angels. We must remember, however, that Milton also was not free from the technical expressions of a celestial cosmology that the researches of science had already exploded. To return to the earlier part of Gabriel's charge, it will be noted that Vondel, though shadowy in his theology, fully escapes that rock of Arian heresy on which Milton struck in his sixth book; but, once started on the primum mobile, he wanders on in a sufficiently tedious prolixity. At length, however, the speech of Gabriel ceases, and the first act closes with a long antiphonal ode from the chorus. As this passage — almost the only one hitherto translated into English — was rendered with some success by the late Sir John Bowring, I will not attempt to give a version of it here. It is a long rhapsody in praise of the divine attributes, expressed in language of exceptional sublimity, and with a mingling of daring theological dogma with organ harmony of music which is not unworthy of those that "sing, and singing in their glory move."
In reviewing this first act, we see that, as in "Paradise Lost," jealousy is the seed out of which the shoot and flower of rebellion bear such rapid fruit of destruction. But whereas in that poem in almost precisely similar terms, God himself commands obedience to the son, "whom this day I have begot," and proclaims his superiority to the angels, which enflames them to sullen revolt, it is here the ignominy of watching the crescent supremacy of the vile rival man, born of the dust, that rouses the jealous anger of the princes of Angelborough. The causes are widely distinct; the consequences are curiously identical. But we must not press on too fast: when the first act closes, all appears docile and quiet in heaven; if complaint there be, it finds no voice in words.
But the second act opens in startling contrast to this universal subjection. Lucifer himself enters, attended by Belzebub and other of his own familiar followers. They draw rein in this quiet place, and the leader opens discouse as follows: -
| Swift spirits, let us stay the chariot of the dawn, For high enough, in sooth, God's morning star is drawn, |
| Of the morning star enrayed, that rapt archangels prize, For see another blaze in the light of God arise! |
In this tone of almost petulant indignation the stadtholder of heaven proceeds, and only ceases to call the attention of Belzebub to the sound that reaches them from far away. It is the trumpet of Gabriel, who pronounces the same disastrous message at another of the gates of Angelborough. The melancholy of Lucifer is stirred and roused by the passionate declamations of Belzebub, who cries that an earth-worm has crept out of a clod of earth that he, the lord of heaven, might with downcast eyes and bended knees adore it. Lucifer had best not wait for the order to lay down his sceptre, but leave his throne at once, and take the lyre in hand, ready, at the first sight of man, to smite its choids with a servile plectrum. All this ironical advice is little to the taste of the prince.
| Nay, that will I resist, so be it in my power, |
he cries; and Belzebub takes instant advantage of his defiance to build him up in conceit of his own majesty and power. His ever-crescent light, the first and nearest God's, no captious decree can diminish, no upstart mortal approach. Shall a voice of lower pitch thunder from the throne? To carry out this vain design of promoting man, were to violate the sacred right of the eldest child's inheritance. Such an assumption, actually forced on the angelic orders, might provoke all heaven armed against one. Lucifer replies in a spirit of patriotic devotion, which has nothing of the rebel angel in it, but is rather inspired by the recent memories of the holy struggle of the United Provinces against Spain: "If I am a child of the light, a ruler over the light, I shall preserve my prerogative. I budge before no tyrant, nor arch-tyrant. Let who will budge, I will not yield a foot. Here is my fatherland. Let me perish, so long as I perish with this crown upon my head, this sceptre in my fist, and so many thousands of dear friends around me. That fall will tend to honor and unwithering praise,
| En liever d'eerste Vorst in eenigh lager hof, Dan in't gezalight licht de tweede, of noch een minder, |
and better to be first prince of some lower court, than in the blessed light to be second, or even less." These two lines are not less famous in Holland than is with us that single line in which Milton intensified the expression of Vondel's idea in half the number of words. But in the midst of these vague desires and unshaped instincts of defiance, the chariot of Gabriel, in whose hands the hook of God's mysteries lies folded, is driven their way, and Lucifer determines to question the herald further as to the actual import of this message that so trenches on angelic pride. Belzebub leaves him, and the two great princes meet. Lucifer addresses Gabriel with a frank statement of his doubts and apprehensions. For what purpose has the eternal Grace humiliated its children? Why has the angel nature been thus precipitated into dishonor? Will God unite eternity to a beginning, the highest to the lowest, the Creator to the created? Must innumerable godlike spirits, unweighed by bodies, how before the gross and vile element of mortal clay? He closes by entreating Gabriel to unlock the sealed book he holds, and explain to his wondering intelligence this terrible paradox. To this eloquent appeal Gabriel has no very intelligible reply to give: he repeats the statement of destiny, he charges the stadholder with obedience; but he fails to give any very salient reasons for a decree that must have startled and perplexed himself. "Obey God's trumpet! you have heard his will!" is the sum of the explanation that he has to give. Lucifer then draws a picture of the misery of those coming days, when he will have to see man sitting beside the Deity upon his throne, and watch the incense-censers swinging to the sound of thousand thousand unanimous chorales, each bar of which will dull the majesty and diamond rays of the morning star, and echo like wailing in the courts of heaven. Gabriel interposes occasionally with commonplaces about obedience, duty, and contentment, while the lament of Lucifer grows keener and shriller as he mourns beforehand over the ruin of his dignity. Nay, even of God's dignity; for he declares that if the fountain of light is to plunge its splendor into the pit of a morass, the heavens will be struck blind, the stars whirl and fall dizzily into space, and disorder and chaos rule in Paradise. It is to give God his right that he thus presumes to oppose his decree. To which Gabriel pertinently, if rather prosaically, answers: "You are very zealous for the honor of God's name; but without considering that God knows much better than you do in what his greatness consists." He quells the murmurs of the stadholder with some sharp words about the necessity of cheerful obedience, and bids him see to it that his feet walk in the steps of God's revealed wisdom. Belzebub, being left alone with Lucifer, hastens to point out to him that the obvious effect of this new edict will be to clip the wings of the stadholder's authority, which, indeed, the latter needs no argument to perceive. Lucifer vows to take his honor into his own hands; he will raise his seat into the very centre of heaven, past all the circles with their starry glory. The heaven of heavens shall furnish him with a palace, the rainbow shall be his throne. On a chariot of clouds, borne up on air and light, he will crush and override all opposition, even from the Lord of earth himself. Or, if he falls, the transparent arch of heaven shall burst like a bubble, and all the universe crash in chaos. He summons Apollyon to council. In the dialogue that ensues some dramatic skill is shown, though Vondel's force lies rather in description, in gorgeous expression, and in lyric rhetoric, than in the true field of the drama. Lucifer is flushed and arrogant; Belzebub, an etherial Iago, hounds him on to rebellion Apollyon is prudential and diffident, a graceful courtier, who hints a weak point and hesitates difficulties. The argument of the latter is that Michael, God's field-marshal, holds the key of the armory; the watch is entrusted to him, and not a star can move without his thorough consciousness. He finely exemplifies the serene strength of the Deity by saying that although the castle of Heaven should set its diamond gates wide open, it would fear not craft, nor ambush, nor attack. Lucifer, however, decides that the attempt must be made; but first of all Apollyon is sent to direct Belial to sound the minds of the angels; the "persuasive accents" of Belial, as in "Paradise Lost," being set great store by for their power of eloquent dissimulation, since
| his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear |
It may be said, in passing, that the figure of Belzebub, though to less marked a degree, resembles the grand figure so named in Milton's poem. Lucifer and Belzebub ascend and disappear: Behial enters with Apollyon, who is now eloquent in the course he lately shunned, and Belial needs no persuasion. They pass to whisper the project of rebellion far and wide among the orders. While they are busied in this work, the stage is crowded with the chorus of loyal angels, who contemplate, as from the primum mobile, the hierarchies circling in the crystalline heaven, illuminated by the uncreated light, as Dante in the "Paradiso" gazed on the snow-white rose of the blessed. They witness with alarm the change that comes over the snowy, starry purity of the orders.
| Why seem the courteous angel-faces So red? Why streams the holy light |
What is the cause, they cry? Since, but now, all the balconies and battlements of heaven were thronged by myriads of happy faces, singing the praise of man! The anti-chorus takes up its parable in reply: -
| When we, enkindled and uplifted By Gabriel's trumpet, in new ways |
This ode, which is here rendered with scrupulous attachment to the original, is an interesting example of the alternation of exquisite with tawdry and prosaic imagery, and noble with fiat and poor expression, which is characteristic of most of Vondel's writings. These choruses at the close of each act are not peculiar to the "Lucifer," but common to Dutch dramatic poetry generally. We have in English an exactly analogous example in the "Cleopatra" of Samuel Daniel, a tragedy written in rhymed verse, with solemn choral variations.
In the second act the rebellion has been confined to the desires of a few princes; in the third act it has taken fast hold of the multitude. The whole process is precisely that recounted in Book V., lines 616-710, of "Paradise Lost." Belial and Apollyon have passed far and wide among the ranks of the angels, and, while calling them together under the banner of Lucifer, have 'cast between ambiguous words and jealousies to sound or taint integrity.' The angels are discovered huddling together, with all their beauty tarnished, drowned in grief and deep sunk in their own melancholy thoughts, and, ever and anon, with one voice they cry, -
| Alas! alas! alas! where has our bliss departed? |
The loyal chorus are properly displeased with this excessive and groundless show of depression. They declare that heaven freezes with the wind of their lamentations. The azure ether is not accustomed to hear a music of affliction go up in vapors through its joyous vault. Triumphs, songs, and symphonies on stringed instruments befit the blessed. They call upon their fellow-choristers to aid them in cheering these sorrowful souls. But the Luciferists, as they are now called, only repeat their monotonous cry, -
| Alas! alas! alas! where has our bliss departed? |
The chorus reminds them of their being. They were born to be joyous; brought forth, like flowers, upon a beam of the glory of God; created to hover and flash through the unshadowed light of life. At last the Luciferists enquire if the chorus is really in earnest in asking them why they mourn: is it not well enough known that the angels have fallen from their high estate to make room for the dull brood of man? The charter given by God has been repealed; the sun of spirits is suddenly gone down, and, burying their faces in their folded wings, they repeat once more their miserable refrain. The chorus, excellent persons with whom the readers find it a little difficult to have patience, exclaims: "How dare you censure the high ordinance? This seems like a revolt! Oh, my brothers, cease this lamentation and defiance, and bow yourselves under the inevitable yoke!" This exemplary advice is severely criticised by the Lucifenists; and a long discussion ensues, in which each party says a single line, after the occasional manner of most Greek plays. The ball of argument is tossed from hand to hand, and both speak well, the Luciferist, however, with most point and wit. The great seducers, Belial and Apollyon, then come upon the scene, and affect the greatest surprise at the appearance of the ranks of angels plunged in sorrow and wrapped about with desolation. They enquire, with simulated anxiety, into the cause of this; but the Luciferists are sad beyond speech, and the chorus replies: "They mourn that the state of man triumphs, that God will entwine his being with Adam's, and spirits be subject to human authority. There you learn briefly the ground of their sorrow." The chorus further begs that Belial will settle the dispute; but without advantage to itself, for the angel princes take, of course, the rebel standpoint, and argue with more subtlety than the lower Luciferists. The wrangling progresses further, the one side continually preferring their charge of a promise broken, a charter disannulled, and the other repeating in a variety of shapes the formula that
| Obedience pleases God, the Ruler of our day, Far more than incense clouds or godlike music may. |
Belial at last sums up in saying, -
| Equality of grace would fit the Godhead best; |
a rebellious assumption of superior justice, which rouses the chorus to a somewhat long-winded summary of the contrast between the supremacy of the Creator and the subjection of the created. During the closing words of this harangue, the clouds and lurid fiery blaze increase, and out of the sinister gloom appears Belzebub. On his appearance, the miserable Luciferists repeat their uniform cry. The new-comer consoles them; and bids them be of good cheer.
| O cease from wailing; rend your badges and your robes No longer without cause, but make your faces bright, |
| Forbid it, Lucifer, nor suffer that our ranks Be mortified so low and sink without a crime, |
| . . . . . . . . |
| We swear, by force, beneath thy glorious flag combined, To set thee on the throne for Adam late designed! |
Lucifer, however, still deems it politic to feign a loyal and pious mind; but at length he gives way, especially to the arguments of Belzebub. To his own superior intelligence the contest seems hopeless, the battle lost before it is fought. But at last he cries, —
| I will content me, then, force to resist by force! |
But he stops the shouts of delight with which this concession is greeted, to bid the princes take witness that he is forced into this step by the need to protect God's realm against usurpation. Belzebub, then, like some arch-heretic or anti-pope, busies himself to prepare divine honors for the new deity. The crowd take up the idea, and shout, —
| Crown, crown with triumph great god Lucifer. |
At the command of Belzebub, they bring perfumes and burn them before him, and in choral antiphonies they sing his praise.
| Follow the chief, whose trumpet and whose drum Protect the crown of Angeldom! |
They pass away in triumph, and the heavenly chorus descends, filling the vacant scene, and trilling a mournful epode to this dithyrambic passion, full of pain and anxious wonder.
The fourth act opens with a most Miltonic blare of martial melody. All heaven is in a blaze, and Gabriel speeds to bid Michael prepare to defend God's name. The third part of heaven has sworn fealty to the traitorous Morning Star, and lead him on with shouts and singing. Melancholy and depression have now seized the loyal angels, and the unfaded seraphim sit brooding on their woe. To Michael, who demands to learn what effect the news produced at the throne of God himself, Gabriel replies: —
| I saw God's very gladness with a cloud of woe O'ershadowed, and there burst a flame out of the gloom |
| Grace, soothly wise and meek, with Justice arguing well. I saw the cherubim, who on their faces fell, |
Michael, thereupon, in a speech of great poetic vigor, calls the battalions of heaven to arms. They all pass out, and the scene is filled by the Luciferists, who enter, accompanying Lucifer and Belzebub. They cry to be instantly led to storm the ranks of Michael but Lucifer first enquires into the condition of his own army, and then proceeds to take their oaths of allegiance. He bids them remember that it is now too late to recede, but they have taken a step at once fatal and fortunate which now forces them with violence to tear from their necks the yoke of slavery to Adam's sons. But whilst they shout in answer, and rapturously pledge themselves to follow the Morning Star, a herald is seen winging his way towards them from the height of heaven. This is Raphael, sent on a last embassy of peace and reconciliation. The position of Raphael in this act closely resembles 'that of Abdiel, 'faithful found among the faithless, faithful only he,' in the end of the fifth book of 'Paradise Lost.' In each case a single seraph opposes Lucifer at the moment of his violent action, alone, in his own palace, and undaunted by the hostile scorn of myriads. There is, however, the important distinction that Raphael is an ambassador, while the beautiful figure of Abdiel distinguishes itself by standing out in unshaken loyalty from the very ranks of the insurgents themselves. The resemblance is least marked in the opening words of Raphael's address. Instead of adopting the lofty arrogance of Michael or the cold impartiality of Gabriel, Raphael flings himself, overwhelmed with grief, on the neck of the stadholder. He says that he brings balsam from the lap of God all will still be forgiven, if the rebel angels be disarmed, and if Lucifer return to his loyalty. He weeps in picturing to the assembly, in florid and impassioned language, how in the old happier days Lucifer bloomed in Paradise, in the presence of the sun of Godhead, blossoming out of a cloud of dew and fresh roses. He reminds Lucifer that his festal robes stood out stiff with pearls and turquoises, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and bright gold. He describes him, exactly as Memling or Van der Goes would have painted him two centuries earlier, standing behind the throne of some gorgeous Madonna, with his gold hair streaming against the clear green and blue of a distant strip of landscape, or glancing among his jewellery, as he crushes an enemy under his mailed foot. It would have well suited a painter of that effluent period to paint the stadholder, as Raphael describes him, with the heaviest sceptre of heaven in his hand, and blazing like a sun among the circling stars. The arguments of Raphael are more worldly than those of Abdiel. He is afraid that Lucifer's beauty will be changed into the semblance of a griffin or dragon or other monstrous thing, and stimulates his vanity in the hope of changing his purpose. At last he interposes force, or a courteous semblance of force, and strives to wrest the battle-axe out of one of the stadholder's hands, and his buckler out of the other. The arch-rebel replies with dignity to these familiarities, and utterly rejects his overtures of peace. Raphael argues, but in vain for Lucifer declares that Adam's honor is the whetstone of his battle-axe, and that he has but to reflect on the indignity which has been threatened to the angels, to grasp more tightly the weapon that must wipe out the memory of that insolence. Raphael takes it absolutely for granted that the rebellion will instantly and utterly fail and, finding Lucifer deaf to his loving and sentimental entreaties, he threatens him with the punishment prepared for him. He declares that a pool of sulphur, bottomless, horrible, has in this very hour gaped to receive him. To all this Lucifer cannot listen with patience he repels him with indignation and defiance. Raphael continues, however, calling him the perjured leader of a blind conspiracy, and declaring that the chains are actually being forged for his limbs. In a brilliant passage Lucifer wavers and sickens, wonders if he dare return to his duty, seeks vainly for counsel and confidence, but is constantly held up by his pride and rage. At the moment that he wavers most, the trumpet of God sounds through the circles of heaven, and it is too late. The battle breaks upon his despair, but Apollyon is full of hope and daring. Raphael, in an agony of regret, and with a breaking heart, remains on the scene, while the Luciferists rush to battle. To him the chorus of good angels enters, and they with him join in a hymn of passionate entreaty to God even now, if it be not too late, to exercise the glorious privilege of pardon.
So closes the fourth act; and when the fifth opens, Raphael is discovered at some distance from the field of battle, giving rapturous thanks for its victorious issue. He has not fought in it himself, but he has been watching from far off, and now he sees the shields of good angels returning, and glittering like suns, each shield-sun streaming triumphant day. Uriel comes to him out of the ranks, and as he crosses the plain of heaven he swings his flaming sword till its rays are flashed back from the facets of his diamond helmet. Called upon by Raphael to describe the fight, Uriel tells how God commanded Michael, the prince of his army, and faithful Gabriel, next to him in command, to lead forth the invincible ranks of the angels against the rebellious godless army, and to sweep them from the pure azure of heaven into the gulf
| which ready opens wide His fiery Chaos to receive their fall. |
Straightway the heavenly army flew to victory like an arrow from the bow. Unnumbered multitudes of celestial warriors, well marshalled, they progressed in a three-cornered phalanx, a triangle of advance, a unity in a three-pointed light. Michael, with the lightning in his hand, led the van. Meanwhile the rebel host was speeding to meet them with no less velocity.
| Their army waxed apace, and like a crescent moon Threw out two points like horns that gained upon us soon, |
One horn is led by Belial and one by Belzebub, while Lucifer brings on the van. The, description of the apostate, though with barocco details omitted by the purer taste of Milton, is closely parallel to the celebrated analogous passage in the sixth book of "Paradise Lost." Encircled by his staff-bearers and green liveries, in golden harness, on which his coat of arms shone in glowing purple, he sat in his sun-bright chariot, the wheels of which were thickly inlaid with rubies. Like a lion or fell dragon he raged for the fight, and his soul flamed athirst for destruction; nor, as he flashed through the field, could any foe see his back, sown all over with stars. With his battle-axe in his hand, and on his left arm a buckler engraved with the morning star, he rushed into the fray. Raphael interrupts again to mourn over the beauty of this phœnix, now doomed to endless flame, but bids Uriel proceed. The latter describes how the battle burst in a hail of burning darts, and the whole air was thunder. After this artillery had expended its force the armies met on closer terms, and, lighting down from their chariots, met hand to hand with club and halbert, sabre, spear, and dagger. The plumes of the angels were singed with lightning, and all their gorgeous panoplies were mingled in undistinguishable confusion, so that one saw turquoise-blue and gold, diamond and pearl, mixed and jarred together, nor knew which splendor belonged to which angel. Again and again repulsed, still Lucifer brought back his shattered army, still only to break like a wave on the iron ranks of the blessed. At last from a height he poured his forces on them; and Vondel, in describing the charge, adds a figure of speech which may have been inspired by one of the landscapes which Jacob Ruysdael was just beginning to exhibit at Amsterdam, but which can hardly be drawn from the home-staying poet's own experience, -
| Like some great inland lake or northland waterfall That breaks upon the rocks and raves with rushing brawl; |
Then the battle raged more than ever; the vaults of heaven were deafened with 'the roar of an angel onset;' but the point of Michael's array pierced the half-moon of Lucifer's with a lurid blaze of red and blue sulphurous flame, and with blow on blow, like thunder-clap on thunder-clap, in spite of all Lucifer's fierce endeavor, struck it apart and divided it. Then, soaring high above the fight in his bright steel array, Lucifer gloomed like a blue dragon, poisoning the whole air with his split tongue and blowing odious vapors through his nostrils. At last Michael and he were face to face, and around them half the battle paused to watch the encounter of two such magnificent princes. First Lucifer swung high his battle-axe with intent to fell God's banner, on which the mystic name of the Creator stood blazoned in crystalline splendor. But Michael shouted to him to beware and to yield — to lead off his godless rout, or else prepare to suffer the worst pangs of punishment. But the maddened archangel strove all the more to cleave the diamonds that formed the sacred name, but the moment he touched them the blade of his battle-axe sprang to atoms. Then Michael grasped his lightning sword, and cleft the arch-enemy of the blessed through helmet and head. He fell heavily out of his chariot. Then Apollyon felt the flaming sword of Uriel. Belzebub still raged, Belial still defied the hosts of God but the fall of the stadholder had fully broken the half-moon of the rebel onset, although the giant Orion attempted to lead a return charge. Uriel compares the appearance of the fallen archangel to that of an ass, a rhinoceros, and an ape, such an uncouth monster did he seem lying prone on the battle-field. Apollyon fled and soon he and all the rest were driven thunderstruck before the sword of Michael till they came to the abyss that gaped to receive them, and were hurried down, roaring and yelping, into the jaws of hell itself, while Michael, returning, was greeted with cymbals, shawms, and tambours.
The remarkable points of resemblance between this long and spirited description of the fall of the rebel angels and that given in the sixth book of "Paradise Lost" are, of course, far too close and too numerous to be mere coincidences. There can be no doubt whatever that the deep impression made on Milton's imagination by the battle in the "Lucifer" remained vividly before him when he came to deal with the same branch of his subject. In some respects the earlier poet has distinctly the advantage. He gives but one fight while Milton, for no intelligible reason, divides the action between three days. The addition of the gunpowder and the ridiculous tossing about of mountains torn up from their bases are certainly no improvements upon the simpler, more human description of Vondel, In volume of melody and in the beauty of individual passages the English poet, of course far exceeds the Dutch.
Uriel ceases his discourse as Michael and the victorious chorus enter. They sing this ode, curious for its variations of metre and the eccentric distribution of its rhymes: —
| Blest be the hero's hour, Who smote the godless power, |
Michael, in a triumphal harangue, proclaims the victory of the loyal cause, and points to the hosts of the fallen angels, ever sinking dizzily downwards, writhing, accursed, misshapen. It is at this minute that Gabriel hastily enters, bearing most startling tidings.
| Gabriel. | Alas! alas! alas! to adverse fortune bow! What do ye here? In vain are songs of triumph now, |
| Michael. | What hear I, Gabriel? |
| Gabriel. | O! Adam is fallen and lost! The father and the stock of all the human race |
Lucifer has gathered together the remnants of his army in the bowels of hell, and, to hide them from God's eye, has concealed them in a cloud, a dark cavern of murder. Seated in the midst of them, in hellish council, he addresses them, precisely as in Milton, and proposes to them to attack man by forge or subtlety the seduction of the human race is agreed upon. Lucifer gloats over the future misery of man, fallen like themselves, and rejoices to imagine that this will complete their revenge on God, and ensure the defeat of his purposes. Belial is then deputed to make his way up from hell to the terrene paradise, and, having accomplished the journey, he tempts Eve exactly as recounted in Genesis, and she falling is the cause of the fall of Adam. How Eve gives her husband the apple, and how they awake in dolorous plight from their state of happy innocence, is pathetically told. God thunders among the trees of the garden; and Michael bids Uriel undertake the duty, that in "Paradise Lost" he undertakes himself, of driving the guilty pair out of Eden with the two-edged flaming sword. Michael then charges other archangels with the final punishment of the rebel and now intriguing angels, and with this doom of endless pain the drama closes.
| Ozias, to whose fist the very Godhead gave The heavy hammer framed of diamond beaten out, |
When we consider to how great an extent an English writer was about to borrow from this poem, it is singular to find its Dutch author acknowledging a debt to a now forgotten English writer. In the learned and interesting preface to his play, Vondel notes, while citing earlier writers on the same subject, "among English Protestants, too, the learned pen of Richard Baker has discussed very broadly in prose the fate of Lucifer and all the matter of the rebellious spirits." This was Sir Richard Baker whose 'Chronicle' Sir Roger de Coverley was so fond of; a wealthy but imprudent gentleman, who ended his days in the Fleet Prison. No doubt the passage referred to by the Dutch poet is to he found in Baker's "Meditations and Disquisitions," a somewhat uncommon theological work, to which the present writer has had no opportunity of referring.
The "Lucifer" was not received very favorably in Holland. It was true that the violent and internecine strife of the two great religious parties, the burning and parching zeal to which the noble Barneveld had fallen a victim thirty years before, had in a great measure cooled down. But still fanatic rage ran very high in the United Provinces, and one attack after another was made upon "the false imaginations," "hellish fancies," and "irregular and unscriptural devices" of Vondel's beautiful drama. An effort was made in February 1654 to prevent the representation of "the tragedy made by Joost van den Vondel, named 'Lutsevar,' treating in a fleshly manner the high theme of God's mysteries." When this fell through, and the piece had been acted, a still more strenuous effort was made to prevent the printing and to prohibit the sale; but at last, through a perfect sea of invective and obloquy, the poem sailed safe in the haven of recognized literature. Its political significance, real or imagined, gave it no doubt an interest that counterbalanced its supposed sins against theology. It was considered — and the idea has received the support of most modern Dutch critics — that in "Lucifer" Vondel desired to give an allegorical account of the rising of the Netherlands against Philip II. According to this theory, God was represented by the king of Spain, Michael by the Duke of Alva, Adam by the cardinal Granvella, and Lucifer by the first stadholder, William the Silent, who was murdered in 1584. There are several difficulties in the way of consenting to this belief: in the first place, the incidents occurred more than seventy years before the writing of the poem; and secondly, the event of the one rebellion was diametrically opposed to that of the other. William of Orange, indeed, was murdered by a hired assassin, but not until he had secured the independent existence of the new State; and there would be a curious inappropriateness in describing the popular hero as a fallen and defeated angel thrust into hell. There is, however, another theory of the political signification of the "Lucifer," which seems to me much more plausible. It is that which sees in the figure of the rebel archangel the still dominant prince of the English Commonwealth, Cromwell, the enemy of Holland, and in the God and the Michael of Vondel's drama, Charles I. and Laud still surviving in their respective successors. Considered as a prophecy of the approaching downfall of the still flourishing English republic, the allegory has a force and a spirited coherence that are entirely lacking in the generally received version.If Milton had preserved his original design, it is probable that the resemblance of his poem to Vondel's tragedy would have been still greater than it is. In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, are, or were, two draughts of Milton's first scheme for "Paradise Lost," and they show that his earliest intention was to treat the theme in a dramatic form. It is strange that in this day of incessant reproduction and republication these most interesting documents have never been presented to the public. It would be exceedingly interesting to note in what form the essentially epic story of the fall of man originally impressed the imagination of Milton before his unerring instinct for art led him on the better way.
To return to Vondel and the Dutch drama, we find that the veteran poet survived the production of his "Lucifer" by a quarter of a century, dying five years after Milton, though more than twenty years his senior. Almost till the day of his death he labored at the improvement of the literature of his country. But he had the mortification, whilst outliving every one of his great contemporaries, whether in poetry or philosophy – for even Spinoza, the last great Dutchman died before him — of seeing the romantic and lyric practice of his youth entirely set aside in favor of the rhetorical and artificial manner of the French, which, spreading over Europe like a plague, did not spare the literature of Holland, and this in spite of the Forty Years' War and all the personal hatred for France. In the year 1672, the poet Antonides, the last friend of Vondel, and lover of the old school, lamented that the whole literature of his country had become the ape of the French; and by the time of Vondel's death this sterile rhetoric had deformed every branch of letters and learning. A history of the lifetime of Joost van den Vondel is a chronicle of the whole rise and decline of the literature of Holland.