s much as the world of the _Arabian Nights_, or the world of the
chivalrous romance, or that of the pastoral novel.'

Coleridge, in the twenty-second chapter of the _Biographia Literaria_,
points out that the fable and characters of _Paradise Lost_ are not
derived from Scripture, as in the _Messiah_ of Klopstock, but merely
suggested by it--the illusion on which all poetry is founded being thus
never contradicted. The poem proceeds upon a legend, ancient and
fascinating, and to call it a commentary upon a few texts in Genesis is a
marvellous criticism.

The story of the Fall of Man, as recorded in the Semitic legend, is to me
more attractive as a story than the Tale of Troy, and I find the
rebellion of Satan and his dire revenge more to my mind than the circles
of Dante. Eve is, I think, more interesting than 'Heaven-born Helen,
Sparta's queen'--I mean in herself, and as a woman to write poetry about.

The execution of the poem is another matter. So far as style is
concerned its merits have not yet been questioned. As a matter of style
and diction, Milton is as safe as Virgil. The handling of the story is
more vulnerable. The long speeches put in the mouth of the Almighty are
never pleasing, and seldom effective. The weak point about argument is
that it usually admits of being answered. For Milton to essay to justify
the ways of God to man was well and pious enough, but to represent God
Himself as doing so by argumentative process was not so well, and was to
expose the Almighty to possible rebuff. The king is always present in
his own courts, but as judge, not as advocate; hence the royal dignity
never suffers.

It is narrated of an eminent barrister, who became a most polished judge,
Mr. Knight Bruce, that once, when at the very head of his profession, he
was taken in before a Master in Chancery, an office since abolished, and
found himself pitted against a little snip of an attorney's clerk, scarce
higher than the table, who, nothing daunted, and by the aid of
authorities he cited from a bundle of books as big as himself, succeeded
in worsting Knight Bruce, whom he persisted in calling over again and
again 'my learned friend.' Mr. Bruce treated the imp with that courtesy
which is always an opponent's due, but he never went before the Masters
any more.

The Archangel has not escaped the reproach often brought against affable
persons of being a bit of a bore, and though this is to speak
unbecomingly, it m