sehold gods, some as nymphs; in a
word, no foul or wicked spirit which was not one way or other honoured of
men as god, till such time as light appeared in the world, and dissolved
the works of the Devil." The argument which Milton himself sets forth for
the support of this view was accepted as conclusive in his own age. The
Ionian gods, he says, Titan, and Saturn, and Jove, and the rest, the
youngest branch of that evil and influential family, were--

Held
Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth
Their boasted parents.

They ruled the middle air and had access to no higher or purer heaven.
Howsoever Milton came by the doctrine, it was of enormous use to him; it
gave him names for his devils, and characters, and a detailed history of
the part they had played in human affairs; it was, in short, a key to all
the mythologies.

By these devices the author of _Paradise Lost_ escapes the impoverishment
of imagination that his subject seemed to impose upon him. On looking
once more over Andreini's list of prohibited topics, we are surprised to
find how many of them Milton has found a place for. He does introduce
points of history, sacred and profane; he relates fictions of fabulous
deities; he rehearses loves, furies, triumphs, conflagrations, and things
of a like nature. The principal conflagration that he describes is on a
very large scale; and the majestic ascent of the Son--

Up to the Heaven of Heavens, his high abode,
* * * * *
Followed with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious often thousand harps, that tuned
Angelic harmonies,

is the grandest triumphal procession in all literature. On the other
hand, he manages to dispense with some of the institutions and implements
"introduced by the necessities of sin." He has swords and spears,
trumpets and drums in plenty. But he has no knives, nor hatchets, nor
bellows; and no theatres nor exchequers. There are no urns nor funeral
piles, because there is no death; or rather, because the only Death that
there is increases the number of persons in the poem by one. Sports of
hunting and fishing there are, of course, none; and, although it is an
heroic poem, the horse takes little part in the celestial war, is hardly
known in hell, and is unheard of on earth until Adam beholds in vision
the armed concourse of his corrupt descendants. Nevertheless, the general
impression left by the poem is one of richness ra