n of the adjective, transmute them into
imperishable verse. His "darkness visible" and "human face divine" are
instances of this power.

[Illustration: MILTON DICTATING PARADISE LOST TO HIS DAUGHTERS.
_From the painting by Munkacsy_.]

Twentieth century criticism is more fully recognizing the debt of
subsequent poetic literature to Milton. Saintsbury writes:--

"Milton's influence is omnipresent in almost all later English
poetry, and in not a little of later prose English literature. At
first, at second, at third, hand, he has permeated almost all his
successors."[6]

How the Paradise Lost has affected Thought.--Few people realize how
profoundly this poem has influenced men's ideas of the hereafter. The
conception of hell for a long time current was influenced by those
pictures which Milton painted with darkness for his canvas and the
lightning for his brush. Our pictures of Eden and of heaven have also
felt his touch. Theology has often looked through Milton's imagination
at the fall of the rebel angels and of man. Huxley says that the
cosmogony which stubbornly resists the conclusions of science, is due
rather to the account in _Paradise Lost_ than to _Genesis_.

Many of Milton's expressions have become crystallized in modern
thought. Among such we may mention:--

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven,
What matter where, if I be still the same?"[7]

"To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."[8]

"...Who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe."[9]

The effect of _Paradise Lost_ on English thought is more a resultant
of the entire poem than of detached quotations. _L'Allegro_ and _Il
Penseroso_ have furnished as many current quotations as the whole of
_Paradise Lost_.

The Embodiment of High Ideals.---No poet has embodied in his verse
higher ideals than Milton. When twenty-three, he wrote that he
intended to use his talents--

"As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."[10]

Milton's poetry is not universally popular. He deliberately selected
his audience. These lines from _Comus_ show to whom he wished to
speak:--

"Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
To such my errand is."

He kept his promise of writing something which speaks for liberty and
for nobility of soul and which the wo