the subtle enchanter, the search of the brothers for their lost sister, the safe event of their wanderings, are all points which, however simple in themselves, yet excite our interest; however certain we may feel that virtue in the person of the Lady will never fall to the allurements of Comus, they neither of them become a mere abstraction.  That is to say that, little as there may be of plot, the interest is that of the drama, an interest really felt in the fate of the characters; while the medium adopted is that of the masque, with its spectacular machinery, even if not in its regular and orthodox form.  It follows that the dramatic interest is a clog on the scenic elaboration of the form, while the form is necessarily inadequate to the rendering of the content.

It is significant that in all the early editions the piece is merely styled ‘A Maske Presented At Ludlow Castle’; the title of Comus was first affixed by Warton.  It was an obvious title for a critic to adopt; it is probably the last that the author would himself have thought of choosing.  Had it been named contemporaneously, and after the fashion of the masques at court, the title of the Triumph of Virtue could not but have suggested itself.  This is indeed the very theme of the piece.  Virtue in the person of the Lady, guarded by her brothers, watched over by the attendant Spirit, aided at need by the nymph Sabrina, triumphant over the blandishments and temptations of fancy and of sense in the persons of Comus and his followers; that is the subject of the masque.  It is a subject finely and suitably conceived for spectacular illustration, and possesses a moral after Milton’s own heart.  The closing lines of the poem, already quoted, give admirable expression to the motive.  Were the subject, on the other hand, to be treated dramatically, then the character of the Lady, virtue at grip with evil, was worthy to exercise—­had; indeed, in varying forms long exercised—­the highest dramatic genius.  But in this direction lay, consciously or unconsciously, one of Milton’s most evident limitations, and had he attempted to give full dramatic expression to the idea it is not improbable that the experiment would have resulted in undeniable failure.  From such an attempt he was, however, debarred by the terms of his commission, which demanded not a drama, but a spectacular performance.  Yet in spite of this Milton’s conception of the piece is, as we have seen, essentially dramatic, and consequently in so far as the means prevented the due fulfilment of that conception in so far must the Lady necessarily fall short of the adequate realization of her high role.  The action is too much abstracted, the characters too allegorical, to satisfy in us the dramatic expectations which they nevertheless call forth; while, on the other hand, they remain too concrete and individual to be adequately rendered by purely spectacular means.