invectives, is one of its great
excellences. The author might here turn his philippics against Salmasius
to good account. The rout in Heaven is like the fall of some mighty
structure, nodding to its base, "with hideous ruin and combustion down."
But, perhaps, of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the description of
the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom
"retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp
their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle," is the most
perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity.--What proves the truth
of this noble picture in every part, and that the frequent complaint of
want of interest in it is the fault of the reader, not of the poet, is
that when any interest of a practical kind take a shape that can be at
all turned into this, (and there is little doubt that Milton had some
such in his eye in writing it,) each party converts it to its own
purposes, feels the absolute identity of these abstracted and high
speculations; and that, in fact, a noted political writer of the present
day has exhausted nearly the whole account of Satan in the Paradise
Lost, by applying it to a character whom he considered as after the
devil, (though I do not know whether he would make even that exception)
the greatest enemy of the human race. This may serve to shew that
Milton's Satan is not a very insipid personage.

Of Adam and Eve it has been said, that the ordinary reader can feel
little interest in them, because they have none of the passions,
pursuits, or even relations of human life, except that of man and wife,
the least interesting of all others, if not to the parties concerned, at
least to the by-standers. The preference has on this account been given
to Homer, who, it is said, has left very vivid and infinitely
diversified pictures of all the passions and affections, public and
private, incident to human nature--the relations of son, of brother,
parent, friend, citizen, and many others. Longinus preferred the Iliad
to the Odyssey, on account of the greater number of battles it contains;
but I can neither agree to his criticism, nor assent to the present
objection. It is true, there is little action in this part of Milton's
poem; but there is much repose, and more enjoyment. There are none of
the every-day occurrences, contentions, disputes, wars, fightings,
feuds, jealousies, trades, professions, liveries, and common handicraf