COMUS

The Examiner.

June 11, 1815.

Comus has been got up at Covent-Garden Theatre with great splendour, and has had as much success as was to be expected. The genius of Milton was essentiallyundramatic: he saw all objects from his own point of view, and with certain exclusive preferences. Shakespear, on the contrary, had no personal character, and no moral principle, except that of good-nature. He took no part in the scene he describes, but gave fair play to all his characters, and left virtue and vice, folly and wisdom, right and wrong, to fight it out between themselves, just as they do on their ‘old prize-fighting stage’—the world. He is only the vehicle for the sentiments of his characters. Milton’s characters are only a vehicle for his own. Comus is a didactic poem, or a dialogue in verse, on the advantages or disadvantages of virtue and vice. It is merely a discussion of general topics, but with a beauty of language and richness of illustration, that in the perusal leave no feeling of the want of any more powerful interest. On the stage, the poetry of course lost above half of itseffect: but this was compensated to the audience by every advantage of scenery and decoration. By the help of dance and song, ‘of mask and antique pageantry,’ this most delightful poem went off as well as any common pantomime. Mr. Conway topped the part of Comus with his usual felicity, and seemed almost as if the genius of a maypole had inspired a human form. He certainly gives a totally new idea of the character. We allow him to be ‘a marvellous proper man,’ but we see nothing of the magician, or the son of Bacchus and Circe in him. He is said to make a very handsome Comus: so he would make a very handsome Caliban; and the common sense of the transformation would be the same. Miss Stephens played the First Nymph very prettily and insipidly; and Miss Matthews played the Second Nymph with appropriate significance of nods and smiles. Mrs. Faucit, as the Lady, rehearsed the speeches in praise of virtue very well, and acted the scene of the Enchanted Chair admirably. She seemed changed into a statue of alabaster. Miss Foote made a very elegant Younger Brother.—It is only justice to add, that Mr. Duruset gave the songs of the Spirit with equal taste and effect; and in particular, sung the final invocation to Sabrina in a full and powerful tone of voice, which we have seldom heard surpassed.

These kind of allegorical compositions are necessarily unfit for actual representation. Every thing on the stage takes a literal, palpable shape, and is embodied to the sight. So much is done by the senses, that the imagination is not prepared to eke out any deficiency that may occur. We resign ourselves, as it were, to the illusion of the scene: we take it for granted, that whatever happens within that ‘magic circle’ is real; and whatever happens without it, is nothing. The eye of the mind cannot penetrate through the glare of lights which surround it, to the pure empyrean of thought and fancy; and the whole world of imagination fades into a dim and refined abstraction, compared with that part of it, which is brought out dressed, painted, moving, and breathing, a speaking pantomime before us. Whatever is seen or done, is sure to tell: what is heard only, unless it relates to what is seen or done, has little or no effect. All the fine writing in the world, therefore, which does not find its immediate interpretation in the objects or situations before us, is at best but elegant impertinence. We will just take two passages out of Comus, to shew how little the beauty of the poetry adds to the interest on the stage: the first is from the speech of the Spirit as Thyrsis:—

‘This evening late, by then the chewing flocksHad ta’en their supper on the savoury herbOf knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold,I sat me down to watch upon a bankWith ivy canopied, and interwoveWith flaunting honeysuckle, and began,Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,To meditate my rural minstrelsy,Till Fancy had her fill; but ere a close,The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,And filled the air with barbarous dissonance:At which I ceased, and listen’d them a while,Till an unusual stop of sudden silenceGave respite to the drowsy-flighted steedsThat draw the litter of close-curtain’d sleep:At last a soft and solemn breathing soundRose like a steam of rich distill’d perfumes,And stole upon the air, that even SilenceWas took ere she was ‘ware, and wished she mightDeny her nature, and be never moreStill to be so displaced.’

‘This evening late, by then the chewing flocks

Had ta’en their supper on the savoury herb

Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold,

I sat me down to watch upon a bank

With ivy canopied, and interwove

With flaunting honeysuckle, and began,

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy,

To meditate my rural minstrelsy,

Till Fancy had her fill; but ere a close,

The wonted roar was up amidst the woods,

And filled the air with barbarous dissonance:

At which I ceased, and listen’d them a while,

Till an unusual stop of sudden silence

Gave respite to the drowsy-flighted steeds

That draw the litter of close-curtain’d sleep:

At last a soft and solemn breathing sound

Rose like a steam of rich distill’d perfumes,

And stole upon the air, that even Silence

Was took ere she was ‘ware, and wished she might

Deny her nature, and be never more

Still to be so displaced.’

This passage was recited by Mr. Duruset; and the other, which we proposed to quote, equally became the mouth of Mr. Conway:—

‘Two such I saw, what time the labour’d oxIn his loose traces from the furrow came,And the swinkt hedger at his supper sat;I saw them under a green mantling vineThat crawls along the side of yon small hill,Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots:Their port was more than human as they stood:I took it for a fairy visionOf some gay creatures of the element,That in the colours of the rainbow liveAnd play in th’ plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,And as I pass’d, I worshipp’d.’

‘Two such I saw, what time the labour’d ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came,

And the swinkt hedger at his supper sat;

I saw them under a green mantling vine

That crawls along the side of yon small hill,

Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots:

Their port was more than human as they stood:

I took it for a fairy vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colours of the rainbow live

And play in th’ plighted clouds. I was awe-struck,

And as I pass’d, I worshipp’d.’

To those of our readers who may not be acquainted with Comus, these exquisite passages will be quite new, though they may have lately heard them on the stage.

There was an evident want of adaptation to theatrical representation in the last scene, where Comus persists in offering the Lady the cup, which she as obstinately rejects, without anyvisiblereason. In the poetical allegory, it is the poisoned cup of pleasure: on the stage, it is a goblet filled with wine, which it seems strange she should refuse, as the person who presents it to her, has certainly no appearance of any dealings with the devil.

Milton’s Comus is not equal to Lycidas, nor to Samson Agonistes.It wants interest and passion, which both the others have. Lycidas is a fine effusion of classical sentiment in a youthful scholar: his Samson Agonistes is almost a canonisation of all the high moral and religious prejudices of his maturer years.Wehave no less respect for the memory of Milton as a patriot than as a poet. Whether he was atruepatriot, we shall not enquire: he was at least aconsistentone. He did not retract his defence of the people of England; he did not say that his sonnets to Vane or Cromwell were meant ironically; he was not appointed Poet-Laureat to a Court which he had reviled and insulted; he accepted neither place nor pension; nor did he write paltry sonnets upon the ‘Royal fortitude’ of the House of Stuart, by which, however, they really lost something.[34]

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