to be art at all. The verse which in truth dances
so cunningly appears to the uninitiated to stumble and halt. The
music, which the common ear is so slow to catch, makes us think of
those Platonic mysteries of abstract number seen only in their
perfection by some godlike mathematician who lives rapt above sense and
matter in the contemplation of the Idea of Good.

But, if there is much in an art so consummate as Milton's which escapes
analysis, there are also elements which can be measured and weighed.
Here as in the _Paradise Lost_ students of metre can count and compare
his stresses and pauses, and set out some finite portion of the
infinite variety of rhythms which, even more needed here than in
_Paradise Lost_, sustain the poem in its difficult flight over so
apparently barren a country. The art of the poet as distinct from the
musician is less difficult to trace. An avowed sequel has to recall
its predecessor and yet not to recall it too much. _Paradise Regained_
recalls _Paradise Lost_ by its central action, a {211} temptation, by
its council of devils, by its assembly of the heavenly host, by a
hundred echoes of phrase and circumstance. But though the heavenly
host is itself unchanged, though it is still the old "full frequence
bright Of Angels" yet there is now no real council. The Son, the only
spokesman who can address the Father, is no longer present, and even
the hymn of the angels gets no more than a vague description. A
greater change has come over the infernal council: scarcely any longer
infernal, for their leader can now open his address to them with

"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World,"

and the meeting is held in mid air and no longer in hell. Nor is any
rivalry attempted with the great debate of _Paradise Lost_: only enough
to awaken its memory in the reader and to enable the poet to find a
place in the second meeting for the most obvious of temptations which
yet reverence forbade him to introduce into the main action. And note
how this contains at least one of those small dramatic touches for
which, except from Mr. Mackail, Milton has got too little credit.
Satan asks how he is to assail the new enemy: and Belial, who stands
for the sensualist man of the world, at once offers his suggestion.
{212} He is sure, as such men always are, that the lowest motive is
invariably the true mainspring and explanation of all human actions:
there is no beating about the bush with him: he i