ase the two are at variance. There is no
speech of Adam's to be matched with the pleading intensity of Eve's
appeal, beginning--"Forsake me not thus, Adam!"--and to her Milton
commits the last and best speech spoken in Paradise:--

But now lead on;
In me is no delay; with thee to go
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under Heaven, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banished hence.

She is generous and loving; her only reproach addressed to Adam is that
he acceded to her request, and permitted her, on that fateful morning, to
do her gardening alone, among the roses and myrtles. She is a fair
companion picture to set over against Dalila, and is utterly incapable of
Dalila's hypocrisy in justifying private treachery by reasons of public
policy. There is even a certain dramatic development in her character;
after she has eaten of the fruit, audacity and deceit appear in her
reflections; she meditates withholding from Adam the advantages of the
tree, in order that she may become--

More equal, and perhaps--
A thing not undesirable--sometimes
Superior.

It is easy to understand how tired Eve might well become (even before the
fallacious fruit was tasted) of Adam's carefully maintained superiority.
On thinking, however, of the judgment that she may have to suffer, and of
her own death, she resolves to draw him in, her motive being not fear,
but a sudden movement of jealousy at the thought of--

Adam wedded to another Eve.

This is as near an approach to drama in the handling of a human situation
as is to be found in all _Paradise Lost_.

But enough of this vein of criticism, which is justified only by the
pleasure of detecting Milton too imperfectly concealed behind his
handiwork. To treat the scenes he portrays as if analysis of character
were his aim, and truth of psychology his touchstone, is to do a wrong to
the artist. He is an epic, not a dramatic, poet; to find him at his best
we must look at those passages of unsurpassed magnificence wherein he
describes some noble or striking attitude, some strong or majestic
action, in its outward physical aspect.

In this, the loftiest part of his task, his other defects, as if by some
hidden law of compensation, are splendidly redeemed. While he deals with
abstract thought or moral truth his handling is tight, pedantic, and
disagreeably hard. But whe