ce of Homer, who believed his gods and goddesses to be
real beings, and would have been rather harsh with a critic who called
them machinery. These rules had probably an influence with Milton, and
induced him to manipulate these serious angels more than he would have
done otherwise. They appear to be excellent administrators with very
little to do; a kind of grand chamberlains with wings, who fly down to
earth and communicate information to Adam and Eve. They have no
character: they are essentially messengers,--merely conductors, so to
say, of the Providential will; no one fancies that they have an
independent power of action; they seem scarcely to have minds of their
own. No effect can be more unfortunate. If the struggle of Satan had
been with Deity directly, the natural instincts of religion would have
been awakened; but when an angel possessed of mind is contrasted with
angels possessed only of wings, we sympathize with the former.

In the first two books, therefore, our sympathy with Milton's Satan is
great; we had almost said unqualified. The speeches he delivers are of
well-known excellence. Lord Brougham, no contemptible judge of
emphatic oratory, has laid down that if a person had not an opportunity
of access to the great Attic masterpieces, he had better choose these
for a model. What is to be regretted about the orator is, that he
scarcely acts up to his sentiments. "Better to reign in hell than
serve in heaven," is at any rate an audacious declaration; but he has
no room for exhibiting similar audacity in action. His offensive
career is limited; in the nature of the subject, there was scarcely any
opportunity for the fallen archangel to display in the detail of his
operations the surpassing intellect with which Milton has endowed him.
He goes across chaos, gets into a few physical difficulties; but these
are not much. His grand aim is the conquest of our first parents; and
we are at once struck with the enormous inequality of the conflict.
Two beings just created, without experience, without guile, without
knowledge of good and evil, are expected to contend with a being on the
delineation of whose powers every resource of art and imagination,
every subtle suggestion, every emphatic simile has been lavished. The
idea in every reader's mind is, and must be, not surprise that our
first parents should yield, but wonder that Satan should not think it
beneath him to attack them. It is as if an army sho