sad. The sense of greatness
transcends all pain. In the preface of _Samson_ Milton alludes to
Aristotle's remark that it is the function of tragedy to effect through
pity and fear a proper purgation of these emotions. Whatever be the
precise meaning of that famous and disputed sentence, there is no doubt
that Milton gives part of its general import truly enough when he
paraphrases it "to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind
of delight stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well
imitated." And its application extends far beyond the mere field of
tragedy. So far as other kinds of poetry, or indeed any of the arts,
deal with {247} subjects that arouse any of the deeper human emotions,
the law of purification by a kind of delight is one by which they stand
or fall. A crucifixion which is merely painful, as many primitive
crucifixions are, or merely disgusting, as many later ones are, is so
far a failure. It has not done the work art has to do. Shakspeare
knew this well enough, though he very likely never thought about it.
The final word of his great tragedies is one of sorrow overpassed and
transformed. "The rest is silence;" "Dost thou not see my baby at my
breast That sucks the nurse asleep?" "I have almost forgot the taste of
fears;" "My heart doth joy that yet in all my life I found no man but
he was true to me!" This is the note always struck before the very end
comes. And Milton, so unlike Shakspeare both as man and as artist, is
no less conspicuous than he in the strict observance of this practice.
All his poems, without exception, end in quietness and confidence. The
beauty of the last lines of _Paradise Lost_, to which early critics
were so strangely blind, is now universally celebrated--

"Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
{248}
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."

The storm and stress of day are over and are followed by the
passionless quiet of evening. So in _Paradise Regained_. A modern
poet would have been tempted to end at line 635, with a kind of
dramatic fall of the curtain--

"on thy glorious work
Now enter, and begin to save Mankind."

Not so Milton. As after the most aweinspiring death known to
literature the _Oedipus Coloneus_ closes on the note of acquiescent
peace--