.
If we hesitate in believing this of him, it is because we conceive in him
a stern intellectual pride and strength, which could not easily kneel to
adore. But there we should greatly err. For he recognized in himself--

"Self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with heaven"--

that capacity of song which nothing but sacred Epos could satisfy.
Diodati asks him--"_Quid studes?_" and he answers--"_Mehercle,
immortalitatem!_" This might persuade us that he finally chose the Fall of
Man as he at first had chosen King Arthur. But not so. When Arthur dropped
away from his purposes, naturally displaced by the after-choice, the will
toward an Epic underwent an answerable revolution. The first subject was
called by the "longing after immortality." But another longing, or the
longing after another immortality, carried the will and the man to the
second. The learning and the learned art of the _Paradise Lost_, concur in
inclining us to look upon Milton as an artist rather than a worshipper. On
closer consideration of its spirit, we cannot think of his putting his
hand to such a work without the inwardly felt conviction that _God was
with him in it_.

And, what is the feeling with which a youthful mind first regards the
_Paradise Lost_? A holy awe--something as if it were a second Bible. So,
too, have felt towards it our great poets. Elwood, the Quaker, has told
us, but we cannot believe him, that _he_ suggested to Milton the _Paradise
Regained_! Hardly credible that, being the natural sequel and complement
of the _Paradise Lost_, it should not have occurred to Milton. Pray, did
the Quaker _suggest the treatment_? To conceive that man was virtually
redeemed when Jesus had avouched, by proof, his perfect obedience, was a
view, we think, proper to spring in a religious mind. It is remarkable,
however, certainly, that the Atoning Sacrifice, which in the _Paradise
Lost_ is brought into the front of the Divine rule and of the poem, in the
_Paradise Regained_ hardly appears--if at all. In both you see the holy
awe with which Milton shuns describing the scenes of the Passion. Between
Adam and Michael, on that "top of speculation" the Visions end at the
Deluge. The Crucifixion falls amongst the recorded events, and is told
with few and sparing words. You _must_ think that the removal of the dread
Crucifixion from the action of the _Paradise Regained_ recommended that
action to the poet--contradicting Warburton, who