nt, the sentiments elevated in the speakers,
but dialectic too. In many of the speeches of the angel Raphael, and
in the council of heaven, in the _Paradise Lost_ there is too much of
that species of discussion for a poem which is to interest the
generality of men. Dryden says, that Satan is Milton's real hero; and
every reader of the _Paradise Lost_ must have felt, that in the Prince
of Darkness, and Adam and Eve, the interest of the poem consists. The
reason is, that the vices of the first, and the weakness of the two
last, bring them nearer than any other characters in the poem to the
standard of mortality; and we are so constituted, that we cannot take
any great interest but in persons who share in our failings.

Perhaps the greatest cause of the sustained interest of the _Iliad_ is
the continued and vehement _action_ which is maintained. The attention
is seldom allowed to flag. Either in the council of the gods, the
assembly of the Grecian or Trojan chiefs, or the contest of the
leaders on the field of battle, an incessant interest is maintained.
Great events are always on the wing: the issue of the contest is
perpetually hanging, often almost even, in the balance. It is the art
with which this is done, and a state of anxious suspense, like the
crisis of a great battle kept up, that the great art of the poet
consists. It is done by making the whole dramatic--bringing the
characters forward constantly to speak for themselves, making the
events succeed each other with almost breathless rapidity, and
balancing success alternately from one side to the other, without
letting it ever incline decisively to either. Tasso has adopted the
same plan in his _Jerusalem Delivered_, and the contests of the
Christian knights and Saracen leaders with the lance and the sword,
closely resemble those of the Grecian and Trojan chiefs on the plain
of Troy. Ariosto has carried it still further. The exploits of his
Paladins--their adventures on earth, in air, and water; their loves,
their sufferings, their victories, their dangers--keep the reader in a
continual state of suspense. It is this sustained and varied interest
which makes so many readers prefer the _Orlando Furioso_ to the
_Jerusalem Delivered_. But Ariosto has pushed it too far. In the
search of variety, he has lost sight of unity. His heroes are not
congregated round the banners of two rival potentates; there is no one
object or interest in his poem. No narrow plain, like tha