ric as
that beginning "Sabrina fair"--with its rich stores of marine mythology?
History, not philosophy, was the source that he drew on for his
splendours; and history, according to Milton, had, since the Fall of Man,
furnished nothing but fainter and weaker repetitions of those stupendous
events which filled the early theatre of universal space.

His epic catalogues, which are few in number, show the same predominant
interest in history and geography. The story of the Creation gave him an
excellent opportunity of enumerating the kinds and properties of birds,
beasts, fishes, and reptiles, plants and trees, after the manner of
Chaucer and Spenser. This opportunity he refuses, or, at any rate, turns
to but small account. His general descriptions are highly picturesque,
but he spends little time on enumeration and detail. Of vegetables, only
the vine, the gourd, and the corn are mentioned by name; of the
inhabitants of the sea only the seal, the dolphin, and the whale. Natural
knowledge, although he made a fair place for it in his scheme of
education, was not one of his dearer studies. It was enough for him, as
for Raphael, that Adam knew the natures of the beasts, and gave them
appropriate names. The mere mention, on the other hand, of historic and
geographic names rouses all the poet in him. The splendid roll-call of
the devils, in the First Book of _Paradise Lost_, and the only less
splendid enumeration, in the Eleventh Book, of the Kingdoms of the Earth,
shown to Adam in vision, are a standing testimony to his powers. Compared
with these, the list of human diseases and maladies in the Eleventh Book,
suggested perhaps by Du Bartas, is rehearsed in a slighter and more
perfunctory fashion.

One last point in Milton's treatment must not be left unnoticed. Much
adverse criticism has been spent on his allegorical figures of Sin and
Death. There is good classical precedent for the introduction of such
personified abstractions among the actors of a drama; and, seeing that
the introduction of sin and death into the world was the chief effect of
his main action, Milton no doubt felt that this too must be handled in
right epic fashion, and must not be left to be added to the theme as a
kind of embroidery of moral philosophy. In no other way could he have
treated the topic half so effectively. There is enough of his philosophy
in Milton's Heaven to damp our desire for more of it on his Earth or in
his Hell. And when once we have