Tomkyns, July 2, 1670, but
did not appear until 1671. They were published in the same volume, but
with distinct title-pages and paginations; the publisher was John
Starkey; the printer an anonymous "J.M.," who was far from equalling
Symmons in elegance and correctness.

"Paradise Regained" is in one point of view the confutation of a
celebrated but eccentric definition of poetry as a "criticism of life."
If this were true it would be a greater work than "Paradise Lost," which
must be violently strained to admit a definition not wholly inapplicable
to the minor poem. If, again, Wordsworth and Coleridge are right in
pronouncing "Paradise Regained" the most perfect of Milton's works in
point of execution, the proof is afforded that perfect execution is not
the chief test of poetic excellence. Whatever these great men may have
propounded in theory, it cannot be believed that they would not have
rather written the first two books of "Paradise Lost" than ten such
poems as "Paradise Regained," and yet they affirm that Milton's power is
even more advantageously exhibited in the latter work than in the other.
There can be no solution except that greatness in poetry depends mainly
upon the subject, and that the subject of "Paradise Lost" is infinitely
the finer. Perhaps this should not be. Perhaps to "the visual nerve
purged with euphrasy and rue" the spectacle of the human soul
successfully resisting supernatural temptation would be more impressive
than the material sublimities of "Paradise Lost," but ordinary vision
sees otherwise. Satan "floating many a rood" on the sulphurous lake, or
"up to the fiery concave towering high," or confronting Death at the
gate of Hell, kindles the imagination with quite other fire than the
sage circumspection and the meek fortitude of the Son of God. "The
reason," says Blake, "why Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of
Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he
was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it." The
passages in "Paradise Regained" which most nearly approach the
magnificence of "Paradise Lost," are those least closely connected with
the proper action of the poem, the episodes with which Milton's
consummate art and opulent fancy have veiled the bareness of his
subject. The description of the Parthian military expedition; the
picture, equally gorgeous and accurate, of the Roman Empire at the
zenith of its greatness; the condensation into a s