we possess. To the
universe there is no known end--nowhere in imagination can its boundary
be reached! This bewildering conception of the cosmos did not trouble
the minds of pre-Copernican thinkers. They regarded the steadfast Earth
as the most important body in the universe; nor were the celestial orbs
which circled round it believed to be very far distant. Tycho Brahe
imagined that the stars were not much more remote than the planets.
Epicurus thought the stars were small crystal mirrors in the sky which
reflected the solar rays, and the Venerable Bede remarked that they
needed assistance from the Sun's light in order to render them more
luminous.

The adoption of the Ptolemaic system by Milton afforded greater scope
for the exercise of his imaginative powers, and enabled him to bring
within the mental grasp of his readers a conception of the universe
which was not lost in the immensity associated with the Copernican view
of things. Besides, it also furnished him with a distinctly defined
basis upon which to erect the superstructure of his poem. Above the
circumscribed universe was Heaven or the Empyrean; underneath it was
Chaos, from which it had been reclaimed, and in the lowest depth of
which Milton located the infernal world called Hell. These four regions
embraced universal space; and in the elaboration of his great epic
Milton relied upon his imaginative genius, his brilliant scholarship,
his vast erudition, and the divine inspiration of the heavenly muse.
With these, aided by the power and vigour of his intellect, he was
enabled to produce a cosmical epic that surpassed all previous efforts
of a similar kind, and which still remains without a parallel.

One of the distinguishing features of Milton's mind was his wonderful
imagination, and in its exercise he beheld those sublime celestial and
terrestrial visions on which he reared fabrics of splendour and beauty,
described in harmonious numbers with the fervid eloquence and charm of a
true poet. An example of the loftiness and originality of his
imagination is afforded us in his description of the Creation, the main
facts of which he derived from the first two chapters of Genesis, and
upon these he elaborated in full and striking detail his magnificent
conception of the efforts of Divine Might, which in six successive
creative acts called into existence the universe and all that it
contains. The rising of the Earth out of Chaos; the creation of light
and of t