and skill, there is very
little interest in the actual plucking of the apple; Eve was too simple a
pleader to make much of the case for the defence. Yet human life
presented itself to Milton chiefly under the guise of a series of
temptations. The title of one of Andrew Marvell's pieces might well be
used to describe the whole canon of his poetry, from _L' Allegro_ to
_Samson Agonistes_--all are parts of _A Dialogue between the Resolved
Soul and Created Pleasure_. To his youthful fancy Mirth and Melancholy
present themselves in the likeness of rival goddesses, claiming
allegiance, and offering gifts. The story of Samson is a story of
temptation, yielded to through weakness, punished by ignominy, and, in
the end, magnificently expiated. In _Comus_ is shown how the temptations
of created pleasure may be resisted by the chastity of the "resolved
soul." In _Paradise Lost_, however, the resolved soul had somehow,
failing Man, found for itself a congenial habitation in the Devil. The
high and pure philosophy of the Lady and her brothers has no counterpart
in the later and greater poem. Milton, therefore, willingly seized on the
suggestion made by Ellwood; and in _Paradise Regained_ exhibited at
length, with every variety of form and argument, the spectacle of--

one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed

The subject of _Comus_ is repeated; but in place of the dazzling
allurement of the senses which is the temptation of the earlier poem,
there is the temptation of the will, the appeal made in vain by Satan to
those more strenuous and maturer passions of pride, ambition, love of
wealth, and love of power. Instead of the innocent and instinctive purity
of the Lady, which unmasks the fallacies of Comus, there is heard in
_Paradise Regained_ the voice of a high Stoical philosophy, strong in
self-sufficiency, rich in illustrations drawn from the experience of the
ages, and attributed, by this singular poet, to the Christ.

If his only purpose had been to make a worthy epical counterpart to
_Paradise Lost_, those critics are doubtless right who think his chosen
subject not altogether adequate to the occasion. The Fall of Man is best
matched by the Redemption of Man--a subject which Milton, whether he knew
it or not, was particularly ill-qualified to treat. It is sketched,
hastily and prosaically, in the Twelfth Book of _Paradise Lost_; but