of
the same insight into "the hidden soul of harmony," to be mere lumbering
prose.

To proceed to a consideration of the merits of Paradise Lost, in the most
essential point of view, I mean as to the poetry of character and
passion. I shall say nothing of the fable, or of other technical
objections or excellences; but I shall try to explain at once the
foundation of the interest belonging to the poem. I am ready to give up
the dialogues in Heaven, where, as Pope justly observes, "God the Father
turns a school-divine;" nor do I consider the battle of the angels as the
climax of sublimity, or the most successful effort of Milton's pen. In a
word, the interest of the poem arises from the daring ambition and fierce
passions of Satan, and from the account of the paradisaical happiness, and
the loss of it by our first parents. Three-fourths of the work are taken
up with these characters, and nearly all that relates to them is unmixed
sublimity and beauty. The two first books alone are like too massy pillars
of solid gold.

Satan is the most heroic subject that ever was chosen for a poem; and the
execution is as perfect as the design is lofty. He was the first of
created beings, who, for endeavouring to be equal with the highest, and to
divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to hell.
His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, myriads of
angelic armies bright, the third part of the heavens, whom he lured after
him with his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms. His
ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest; but not so
his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings. His
strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body; the vastness of
his designs did not surpass the firm, inflexible determination with which
he submitted to his irreversible doom, and final loss of all good. His
power of action and of suffering was equal. He was the greatest power that
was ever overthrown, with the strongest will left to resist or to endure.
He was baffled, not confounded. He stood like a tower; or

"As when Heaven's fire
Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines!"

He is still surrounded with hosts of rebel angels, armed warriors, who own
him as their sovereign leader, and with whose fate he sympathises as he
views them round, far as the eye can reach; though he keeps aloof from
them in his own mind, and hol