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182 THE TUKXWOLD, GA., MARCH ‘28, 1865. Milton. BY VOLTAIKE. We present the readers of The Countryman, this week, with an article, by one of the great est French authors, upon.one of the greatest of Eugiish authors. It is an essay by Voltaire, upon Milton. This essay will be novel, and in teresting to most of our subscribers, to whom French literature is a sealed book, on account of the fact that Voltaire, Moliere, and Bossuei used a different tongue from that of the Ameri can vernacular. As a general rule, French authors possess more life, vivacity, aud genius, than English authors. The latter belong to the phlegmatic Teutonic race, while the former are convenors of a more southern, and warm-hearted people. We would recommend our southern friends to cultivate an acquaintance with French litera ture : and p. beginning to this end, we trans late for them what v’oitnira u to say about Milton : article of the great French writer, -uprfi the only English %'U-. pool, they 3r>d facts never before brought to their attention. 1 Bur w„ j esd with the ar ticle, as follows: “ Milton, travelling in Italy, in the days of his youth, saw represented, in Milan, a comedy entitled, 'AJaai, .o’- Original Sin,’ written by sonae were God the Father, the Devils, the Angels, Adam, Eve, the Serpent, Death, and the Seven Mortal Sine. This subject, worthy of the absurd theatrical genius of that era, was written in a manner commensurate-with its de- sign. The scene opens with a choir of angels, and Michael thus speaks, in the name of bis con federates : * Let the rain-bow be the fiddle-bow of the firmament; let the seven planets be the seven notes of our music \ let time beat exactly his measure ; and let the winds strike the organ,’ &c. The whole piece is in this style. I whisper it to the French people, only, who will laugh at the statement, that our drama, at that time, was but little better—that the Death of Saint John the Baptist, and a hundred other pieces, were written in the same style : though, real ly, we had neither The Faithful Pastor, nor Aminte. . Milton, who attended the representation of the comedy spoken of, saw, beneath the absur dity of its execution, the hidden sublimity of the subject. Often, in things that appear rid iculous to the vulgar, there is a source of grau- deur that is perceptible only to men of genius. The Seven Mortal Sins, dancing with the Devil, are certainly the height of extravagance, and silliness: hut a universe, mads unhappy by man’s frailty: the good deeds, and the ven geance of the Creator! the source of our mis fortunes, and our crimes : these are subjects worthy of the boldest pencil. There is, above all, in these subjects, an indefinable,dark horror, a sombre and sad sublime, which does not at all disagree with the English fancy. Milton conceived the design of making a tragedy of one Audreinojmd dedicated t-.< Marie de Medi- The subject of,this com- - Vi<: dramatis per COUNTRYMAN. the farce of Andreino. He even composed one act, and a half, of the tragedy. I have been assured of this fact by men of letters, who had it from the daughter of Milton, who died while I was in London. The tragedy of Milton commenced with a monologue of Satan, who is introduced into the fourth book of the epic of the great Enedish poet. It is when the Spirit of Revolt, escaping from the depths of hell, discovers the sun, as it goes out from the bands of its Creator. ‘Thou upon whom my Tyrautshowers his gifts, Thou sun, a star of fire-light whom 1 hate ! Day that with pain my dazzled pupils burn, Thou who appear’st the god of circling heavens! Before whom brightness disappearing, flies— Who mak'st the faces of the stars to pale J Reflex of the Most High who rules thy course— Alas! I once eclipsed thy dazzling light. On heaven’s blue vault, thrice higher raised than thou, Thy toppling throne low bowed its head to me. But I am fallen—pride has plunged me down * During the time in which Milton worked at this tragedy, the sphere of his ideas enlarged, in proportion as he thought. His plan grew immense, under his pen ! and, at last, in place of a tragedy, which, after all, had been only bizarre, and uninteresting, he conceived an ep ic poem—a kind of work in which men have often agreed to approve of the whimsical, under the name of the marvelous. The English civil wars, for a long time, de prived Milton of the leisure necessary for the execution of his great design. He was born with an extreme passion for liberty : and this sentiment always prevented his taking part with any of the sects seized with the furor of ruling in his country. He did not wish to bow to the yoke of any human opinion, and there was no church that could boast of counting Milton one of its members. But he did not preserve this neutrality in the civil wars, be tween the king and parliament. He was one of the most bitter enemies of the unfortunate king . Charles I. He even entered, with avidity, into the interest of Cromwell: and by a fatality, but too common, this zealous republican be came the partisan of a tyrant. Hqwas the sec retary of Oliver Cromwell, of Richard Crom well, and of the parliament that continued up to the time of the restoration. The English employed his pen to justify the killing of their king, and to reply to the book which Charles 11. had caused to be written, by Saumaise, upon the subject of this tragic event. Never was there a fine subject so badiy treated, on boih hands. Saumaise defended, in a pedantic style, the cause of the king who died upon the scaffold—of a royal family wandering in Eu rope—and even of all the European kings, in terested in the quarrel. Milton sustains, with bad declamation, the cause of a victorious peo ple, who boasted of having tried their prince according to their laws. The memory of this strange revolution will never perish among men, but the books of Saumaise, and Milton, are already engulfed in oblivion. Milton, whom the English, to-day, regard as a divine poet, was a very poor writer in prose. He was fifty-two years old, when the roy al family was restored. He v/as embraced in the amnesty which Charles II. gave to the ene mies of his father, but was declared, by the act of amnesty, disqualified for holding any office iu the kingdom. It was then that he com menced his epic poem, at an age at which Vir gil had finished his. He had hardly put his hand to this work, when he was deprived of his sight. He found himself pcor, fersairen, and blind, but was not discouraged. He was engaged nine years iu composing his Paradise Lost. He had then but very little reputation— the wits of the court of Charles II. either not knowing him, or holding him in low esteem. It is not astonishing that an old secretary of Cromwell, grown old in exile, blind, and with out worldly goods, should be ignored, or de spised at a court that had substituted for tho austerity of the government of the Protector, all the gallantry of the court of Louis XIV., and in which there was no taste for anything but effeminate poesy—the effeminacy of Wall er—the satires of Rochester—and the wit o! Cowley, Undoubted proof, that he had but little repu tation, is found in the fact that he bad much trouble in finding a publisher for his Paradise Lost. It had a forbidding title, as everything that bore any relation to religion was then out of fashion. At last, Thompson gave him thirty pistoles for a work that has been worth a hun dred thousand crowns to the heirs of this Thompson. This publisher was so much afraid of finding a poor market for Milton’s epic, that he stipulated that the half of these thirty pis toles shduld not be paid, unless there was a sec ond edition, which Milton never bad the con solation of seeing. He remained poor, and with out fame. His name adds auother to the list of great geniuses persecuted by fortune. Paradise Lost was thus slighted in London, but Milton died, never doubting that he would, one day, have a name, and fame. It was Lord ■Sommers, and Dr. Atterbury, afterwards Bish op of Rochester, who finally willed that Eng land should have an epic poem. They engaged the heirs of Thompson to issue a beautiful edi tion of Paradise Lost. Their influence carried many with them. Then the celebrated Mr. Addison wrote, in his usual style, to prove that this poem equaled those of Virgil, and Homer. The English began to persuade themselves that this was so, and the reputation oi Milton waa established.” Mark the Traitors. There are men at the south wbacounsel sub mission—who advise to give up the negroes* find return to the yaukee union, in order, Is; they say, to save our land, stock, Ac. All such men should be bung. You find them in every town , village, and country neighborhood, in the land. They should be watched, marked, and the seal of condemnation set upon them, so that they, and their posterity, may be dis graced, for all comiug time, a6 was the case with the tories of the first l evolution. There are men, within our knowledge, who little dream of it, against whose names we hare drawn a long black mark, and whom we in tend to expose, at a proper time. They may have us marked for destruction, too, should the yankecs, instead of the southerners, succeed. Very well, traitors and tories! we are quit« willing for you to mark us, and, if you succeed, for you to bang us. But you will not succeed. «« There is life in the old land, yet and this old southern land is bound to come out victorious. Already do we see, beaming from ••