even at the time when he himself lived and wrote.

Completion of the poem by working it on to this actual and historical consummation was, therefore, simply impossible. But, in short, by publishing the poem as it stands, Milton certified its completeness according to his own idea of the theme and its capabilities.- "Well, then," some of the critics continue, raising a second question, "can the poem properly be called an epic?" They have in view the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Æneid, as the types of epics; and, allowing that Paradise Lost may rank as also an epic, they think Paradise Regained too short and too simple for such a name. But Milton had anticipated the objection as early as 1641, when, in his Reason of Church-Government, speaking of his literary schemes, he had distinguished two kinds of epics, of either of which he might have the option if he should ultimately determine on the epic form of composition as the best for his genius. "That epick form," he had said, "whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the Book of Job a brief, model." May we not say that, as in Paradise Lost he had adopted the larger or more diffuse of the two models of epic here described, so in Paradise Regained he had in view rather the smaller or briefer model? This would put the matter on its right basis. Paradise Regained is a different poem from Paradise Lost,--not so great, because not admitting of being so great; but it is as good in its different kind, artistically perfect in its pictorial clearness and coherence, and altogether one of the most edifying and full-bodied poems in any literature. The difference of kinds between the two epics is signalised in certain differences in the language and versification. Paradise Regained seems written more rapidly than Paradise Lost, and, though with passages of superlative beauty, yet with less avoidance of plain historical phrases, and less study of the effect of sustained song.

PARADISE REGAINED:

A POEM IN FOUR BOOKS.

THE AUTHOR

JOHN MILTON.

Recovered Paradise to all mankind,

By one man's firm obedience fully tried

Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.

Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field

Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,

And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.

Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan-came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned

VOL. III.

C

To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a dove
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty peers,
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake :—

"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know

How many ages, as the years of men,

This Universe we have possessed, and ruled
In manner at our will the affairs of Earth,
Since Adam and his facile consort Eve
Lost Paradise, deceived by me, though since
With dread attending when that fatal wound
Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve

Upon my head.

Long the decrees of Heaven

Delay, for longest time to Him is short;

And now, too soon for us, the circling hours

This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we

Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound

(At least, if so we can, and by the head Broken be not intended all our power

To be infringed, our freedom and our being

In this fair empire won of Earth and Air)—

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