DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36582#0200
THE DOR& GALLERY.
6i
“The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confusedly.” Paradise Lost, Book II, tines 911—914.
After standing for awhile, “pondering his voyage,” the Fiend launches himself into
the “ wild abyss,” soaring upward on “ his sail-broad vans ” through the “ surging smoke ”
of that primeval desert:
“ Thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity : all unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep ; and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance,
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury stay’d,
Quench’d in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land, nigh founder’d on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.”
Book II, lines 929—942.
Exact judges will probably say of this illustration that M. Dores Chaos is not
Milton’s. The Chaos of our great poet is a dim and formless region, where the elements
of things, as yet unfashioned by the shaping power of God, lie jarring and inorganic.
It is the areat waste described in the commencement of Genesis—“ And the earth was
o
without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep ”—before the Spirit of
God had “ moved upon the face of the waters.” Milton, in the immense flights of his
imagination, pictures it as—-
“ A dark,
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,
And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand :
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms.” Book II, lines 891—900.
Of this conflict, Chance is the highest and the final arbiter. The prevailing character
of the region, therefore, is indeterminateness—the confusion and weltering of changeful
and undisciplined matter. It must be granted that M. Dore has not represented this ;
and it is doubtful whether it could be represented to the eye at all. He has given us,
however, a very fine picture. It is not, indeed, a Chaos, since it exhibits matter in a
o
6i
“The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confusedly.” Paradise Lost, Book II, tines 911—914.
After standing for awhile, “pondering his voyage,” the Fiend launches himself into
the “ wild abyss,” soaring upward on “ his sail-broad vans ” through the “ surging smoke ”
of that primeval desert:
“ Thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity : all unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep ; and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance,
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury stay’d,
Quench’d in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land, nigh founder’d on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.”
Book II, lines 929—942.
Exact judges will probably say of this illustration that M. Dores Chaos is not
Milton’s. The Chaos of our great poet is a dim and formless region, where the elements
of things, as yet unfashioned by the shaping power of God, lie jarring and inorganic.
It is the areat waste described in the commencement of Genesis—“ And the earth was
o
without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep ”—before the Spirit of
God had “ moved upon the face of the waters.” Milton, in the immense flights of his
imagination, pictures it as—-
“ A dark,
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,
And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand :
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms.” Book II, lines 891—900.
Of this conflict, Chance is the highest and the final arbiter. The prevailing character
of the region, therefore, is indeterminateness—the confusion and weltering of changeful
and undisciplined matter. It must be granted that M. Dore has not represented this ;
and it is doubtful whether it could be represented to the eye at all. He has given us,
however, a very fine picture. It is not, indeed, a Chaos, since it exhibits matter in a
o