seventeenth century, no less than from the pages of classic lore. With what a sweep he takes us .the sweep of an exuberant fancy replenished with all the El Dorados of ancient or modern times : "Not higher that hill, nor wider looking round, Whereon, for different cause, the temp ter set Our second Adam, in the wilderness, To show him all earth's kingdoms, and their glory His eye might there command wherever stood City of old or modern fame, the seat Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Cham, And Samarcand by Oxus, Temir's throne, To Paquin, of Sinean kings; and thence To Agra, and Lahor, of Great Mogul, Down to the Golden Chersonese; or where The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since In Moscow; or the Sultan in Bizance, Turchestan-born; nor could his eye not ken The empire of Negus to his utmost port Ercoco, and the less maritime kings, Of Congo, and Angola farthest south; The kingdoms of Almanzor, Fez and Morocco and Algiers and Tremisen ; was to sway The world; in spirit, perhaps, he also saw Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume, This passage may be taken as a poetical summary of the geographical knowledge of Milton's age. Europe had not yet emancipated itself from the mythopoeic age, and travellers' tales gave poets gorgeous colouring for their wordpictures. Indeed the reality of the new discoveries was sufficient to inspire them. It may be noted in Milton's description how prominent a part the "dark continent " of Africa takes. Then, as always, vague, shadowy, and mysterious; great cities, great empires thrown broadcast on the map with a lavish hand! The empire of Negus! What elements of ruthless power wielded by a dusky potentate does it not call And the range of up the seer's eye from Niger flood to Atlas Mount! What a magnificent picture of space! There was the desert truly! But what might there not be in those dim latitudes and longitudes far beyond the tract of burning Saharas? romance of geographical discovery in North-west Africa lasted well into the nineteenth century, when Timbuctoo, so long the object of travellers of every nation, was handed down by rumour as a city full as gorgeous and rich as the seat of Montezume. Mombaza, Quiloa, and Melind are familiar names to us now at the close of the nineteenth century; but it is only recently that we have realised the existence of these places to which Milton allotted such a great ness. The That they were great may be assumed from the descriptions of Portuguese and other travellers. Sofala (thought Ophir) has received a great deal of attention of late from the fact of the Mashunaland expedition and Mr Theodore Bent's discoveries amongst the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe. Here, indeed, would seem to have existed some ancient seat of civilisation, gold - mines, forts, houses, and rich treasure-trove, whither King Solomon's ships may have steered during the time of the Jews' prosperity. In these regions the pickaxe of the miner is at work bringing to light veins of wealth every day. Congo, also, has acquired a new significance of late, and the "realm of Congo," to use Milton's words, is the "Congo Free State" of to-day. Here lies a country vast in extent, only half explored, traversed at rare intervals by the feet of adventurous traders and pioneers, and full, so it is believed, of endless possibilities, larger and more magnificent than the narrow strip of shore to which the Portuguese gave the high-sounding title of the Empire of Congo. Mombassa is also, as we see, another old name with a new significance. It is the headquarters of modern missionary enterprise, and the starting-place of a contemplated railway to the great Nyanza beyond, and the point whence British enterprise may turn with renewed vigour to assail the problems of Central Equatorial Africa. Realms, therefore, that were vague, shadowy, and indistinct in Milton's day, romantic enough for the purpose of the poet, may spring into renewed life and activity. Our blind Teiresias would seem to have discerned with the eye of prophecy the realm of Congo and the king dom of Mombassa. To Milton the whole theory of Physical Geography, the movements of the stars, and the influences of the seasons, were a congenial and fascinating study. In Book X., "Paradise Lost," he propounds, in the fashion of the poet-geographer, a theory of Physical Geography magnificent in its conception : "The sun Had first his precept so to move, so shine, As might affect the earth with cold and heat In the elucidation of his theories of the universe, Milton not only charms the ear with his stately and musical rhythm, but rivets the attention of the reader upon dry physical facts, giving them wonderful colouring of his own. It is an extract worthy of his magnificent poem, and he resembles Lucretius in his power to deal with abstruse matters in majestic verse. To the geographer's pictures he is Satan always deeply indebted. dilated stands "like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved." Uriel is borne on the bright beam whose point bore him downwards "to the sun, now fallen beneath the Azores." The description itself of Eden and the delicious fragrance thereof is 'As when to those who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambique, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabæan odours from the spicy shores The fig-tree whose leaves Adam and Eve used as a covering was "Not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as, at this day, to Indians known, In Malabar or Deccan. Such of late Columbus found the American, so girt With feathered cincture." the great tribute poets owe to geographers and explorers, paints his "Island Eden," and the "Tropic afternoon of Toobenai." "The cava feast, the yam, the cocoa's root, Which bears at once the cup, the milk and fruit; The bread-tree, which without the ploughshare, yields The unreaped harvest of unfurrow'd fields, And bakes its unadulterated loaves Without a furnace in unpurchased groves." There is one most remarkable instance of the inspiration poets can sometimes receive from the muse of Geography, and this is "The Ancient Mariner" of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most beautiful and fantastic creations of the poetic art. The poem is said to have hung upon an incident mentioned in Shelvocke's voyages to Cape Horn and the South Seas. Captain Shelvocke and Clipperton were placed in command of two ships by merchants of Bristol ; but, unfortunately, the expedition was badly conducted, and did not succeed. In his book Shelvocke described the weird ocean scenery of Patagonia (the home of the god Setebos) and Cape Horn; how the navigators experienced such extreme cold when driven into the latitude of 61° 30′ S., that a sailor The fruit that Eve carries to fell with benumbed fingers from Adam is "Whatever Earth, all-bearing Mother, yields In India East or West." Had Milton lived in the days of South Pacific discovery, he would surely have seized upon the idea of the bread-fruit tree and made capital out of this. Lord Byron, in his beautiful and descriptive poem of "The Island," which indeed is throughout a notable instance of the mainsail, and was drowned. "In short, one would think it impossible that anything could subsist in so rigid a climate; and indeed we all observed that we had not the sight of one fish of any kind since we were come southward of the Straights of Le Mair.” "And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold; And through the drifts, the snowy clifts, Did send a dismal sheen; Nor shapes of men, nor beasts we ken, The ice was all between." "Not one seabird, except a disconsolate black albatross, who accom panied us for several days, hovering about us as if he had lost himself." As if it had been a Christian soul, The curse came upon the ship when "Hatley, the second captain, observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird was always near us, imagined from its colour that it might be some ill omen. That which, I suppose, induced him the more to encourage his superstition was the continued series of contrary tempestuous winds which had oppressed us ever since we had got into this sea. But, be that as it would, he, after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the albatross, not doubting, perhaps, that we should have a fair wind after it." "And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe." If Samuel Taylor Coleridge had followed Dr Johnson's advice, he would never have spent his time in reading books of travel and of voyages to the South Seas, and, in all probability, would never have produced the great gem of all his poetry. Ruskin, in his 'Scenes of Travel,' remarks that the charts of science fail in the poetical or pictorial representation of general physical features. Roughly speaking, we recognise general contrasts and apprehend the attributes of the zones; but the poet's and the painter's hand must fill up the details. We have to imagine ourselves aloft, flying with the migratory horde of birds, and looking a down upon the variegated mosaic of the earth's surface. Yonder are the Alps, there are the Apennines, below are "ancient promontories sleeping in the sun; here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field "-in the south" great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like the pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue." Towards the north are deeper shadows and dark forests, till the "earth heaves into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering into a broad waste of gloomy purple, that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amid the northern seas, beaten by storms and chilled by ice-drift." This, indeed, is the prose-poetry of Geography. It is the modern spirit breathing over and spiritualising all aspects of nature. Some of the finest portions of the great Tennyson's poetry are beautiful geographical descriptions. Listen to the "Land of LotosEaters" And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coiled around the stately stems, and ran Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world, All these he saw; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly human face Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard The myriad shriek of wheeling oceanfowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef, The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the the truest and most beautiful descriptions possible of a tropical island. Dwellers in the West Indies have often appropriated this extract, and applied it to Dominica, with its green slopes, shining rivers, and lofty peak of Morne Diabloten. It is difficult, indeed, to realise that Tennyson had never seen, as he elsewhere describes them— "Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise." Can there be, therefore, a great chasm between Poetry and Geography, as of two distinct studies, irreconcilable with, and distinct from, one another? Nay, may not the muse of Geography be the chief auxiliar of the poetic art? If, from the descriptions of geographers and travellers, Shakespeare has evolved his wonderful and matchless creation of Ariel, the sprite of air, Coleridge the story and curse of "The Ancient Mariner," Milton his most magnificent similes from nature, Tennyson his most striking and beautiful descriptive pieces, who shall say that Geography herself deserves not to be enshrined as the tenth muse? Geography as an exact science may be distasteful, and Geography as a compendium of bare names and places in foreign lands an unworthy study; but when the poet has come and cast around these names and places "the consecration and the poet's dream," these very names and places become for us living and inspiring creations. WILLIAM GRESWELL. |