human
Paradise Lost was thus slowly upbearing its author to the highest heaven of fame, Milton was achieving other titles to renown, one of which he deemed nothing inferior. We shall remember Ellwood's hint that he might find something to say about Paradise Found, and the
gpt
into which it cast him. When, says the Quaker, he waited upon Milton after the latter's return to London, Milton
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Ellwood does not tell us the date of this visit, and Phillips may be right in believing that
gpt
Paradise Regained was entirely composed after the publication of
human
Paradise Lost ; but it seems unlikely that the conception should have slumbered so long in Milton's mind, and the most probable date is between Michaelmas, 1665, and Lady-day, 1666. Phillips records that Milton could never hear with patience
gpt
Paradise Regained
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to
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Paradise Lost.
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The most judicious, he adds, agreed with him, while allowing that
gpt
which was probably all that the injudicious meant. There is no external evidence of the date of his next and last poem,
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Samson Agonistes, but its development of Miltonic mannerisms would incline us to assign it to the latest period possible. The poems were licensed by Milton's old friend, Thomas 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
gpt
J.M.,
human
Paradise Regained is in one point of view the confutation of a celebrated but eccentric definition of poetry as a
gpt
If this were true it would be a greater work than
human
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
gpt
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
human
Paradise Lost than ten such poems as
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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
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Paradise Lost is infinitely the finer. Perhaps this should not be. Perhaps to
gpt
the spectacle of the human soul successfully resisting supernatural temptation would be more impressive than the material sublimities of
human
Paradise Lost, but ordinary vision sees otherwise. Satan
gpt
on the sulphurous lake, or
human
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.
gpt
The reason, says Blake,
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The passages in
gpt
Paradise Regained which most nearly approach the magnificence of
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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 single speech of all that has made Greece dear to humanity--these are the shining peaks of the regained
gpt
Paradise, marvels of art and eloquence, yet, unlike
human
Paradise Lost, beautiful rather than awful. The faults inherent in the theme cannot be imputed to the poet. No human skill could make the second Adam as great an object of sympathy as the first: it is enough, and it is wonderful, that spotless virtue should be so entirely exempt from formality and dulness. The baffled Satan, beaten at his own weapons, is necessarily a much less interesting personage than the heroic adventurer of
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Paradise Lost.
human
Though I have lost Much lustre of my native brightness, lost To be beloved of God, I have not lost To love, at least contemplate and admire What I see excellent in good or fair, Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense.