Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/568

562 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.

 

 From The Examiner.

was not dissolved that autumn, and there was no need that Englebury and its twin electors, Mr. and Mrs. Chorley, should interfere with the happiness of Mr. and Lady Sylvia Balfour. Both the young people, indeed, would have scouted the notion, that any fifteen dozen of Chorleys could have possessed that power. Surely it was possible for them to construct a sufficiently pleasant modus vivendi, even if they held somewhat different views about political matters.

But long before the crisis of a general election occurred, Hugh Balfour had managed to think out very seriously several questions regarding the relations between himself and his young wife. He was determined that he would be largely generous and considerate to her. When he saw how tenderly devoted to him she was, when he got to know more of those clear perceptions of duty, and obedience, and unhesitating unselfishness that governed her conduct, when he saw how that sweetness and strange sincerity of manner of hers charmed every one who was introduced to her, surely he had every reason to be generously considerate. It is true that he had dreamed some sentimental dream of a helpmeet who would be constantly at his side in the rough work of the world; but was not that his own folly? It was a pretty notion, doubtless, but look at the actual facts? Was it desirable that this tenderly-nurtured, sensitive girl should plunge into the animosities and anxieties of political life? Her first slight acquaintance, for example, with the ways of a borough election had only shocked and pained her; nay, more, it had very nearly produced a quarrel between him and her. This kind of risk was quite unnecessary. He laughed at the notion of her being an enthusiast for or against the Birmingham League. How could she be deeply interested in the removal of Shrewsbury School, or in Lord Kimberley's relations with the Pacific Railway, or in the expedition of the Dutch against Acheen? Would he gain any more knowledge of the working of the London vestries, supposing he dragged her dainty little feet through the hideous slums of the great city? At this moment he was going off for a riding excursion, after the manner of Cobbett, through Somersetshire. He wanted to find out for himself — for this man was no great enthusiast in politics, but had, on the other hand, a patient desire to satisfy himself as to facts — what were the actual conditions and aspirations of agricultural life there, and he wanted to find out, too, what would be the chances 