departure for Italy.

The "Penseroso" and the "Allegro," notwithstanding that each piece is
the antithesis of the other, are complementary rather than contrary, and
may be, in a sense, regarded as one poem, whose theme is the praise of
the reasonable life. It resembles one of those pictures in which the
effect is gained by contrasted masses of light and shade, but each is
more nicely mellowed and interfused with the qualities of the other than
it lies within the resources of pictorial skill to effect. Mirth has an
undertone of gravity, and melancholy of cheerfulness. There is no
antagonism between the states of mind depicted; and no rational lover,
whether of contemplation or of recreation, would find any difficulty in
combining the two. The limpidity of the diction is even more striking
than its beauty. Never were ideas of such dignity embodied in verse so
easy and familiar, and with such apparent absence of effort. The
landscape-painting is that of the seventeenth century, absolutely true
in broad effects, sometimes ill-defined and even inaccurate in minute
details. Some of these blemishes are terrible in nineteenth-century
eyes, accustomed to the photography of our Brownings and Patmores.
Milton would probably have made light of them, and perhaps we owe him
some thanks for thus practically refuting the heresy that inspiration
implies infallibility. Yet the poetry of his blindness abounds with
proof that he had made excellent use of his eyes while he had them, and
no part of his poetry wants instances of subtle and delicate observation
worthy of the most scrutinizing modern:--

"Thee, chantress, oft the woods among,
I woo, to hear thy evensong;
And, missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry, smooth-shaven green."