e, not open'd, but built up
With a final cloud of sunset. Do I dream?
Alas, not so! this is the Eden lost
By Lucifer the serpent! this the sword
(This sword, alive with justice and with fire,)
That smote upon the forehead, Lucifer
The angel! Wherefore, angel, go ... depart--
Enough is sinn'd and suffer'd.

_Lucifer._ By no means."

It will be observed, that in this passage Gabriel thrice desires Lucifer
to "move on;" it will also be observed that Gabriel has a sword--or
perhaps it may be the revolving sword which guards Paradise that he
speaks of; but be it so or not, he threatens Lucifer with the edge of
the sword unless he decamps; and yet, although the warning is repeated,
as we have said, three distinct times, and although Lucifer
pertinaciously refuses to stir a step, still the weapon remains
innocuous, and the arch-fiend remains intact. This is not the way in
which Milton manages matters. Towards the conclusion of the fourth book
of Paradise Lost, this same Gabriel orders Satan to leave his presence--

"Avant!
Fly thither whence thou fledd'st."

The rebel angel refuses to retire:--upon which, without more ado, both
sides prepare themselves for battle. On the side of Gabriel

"Th'angelic squadron bright
_Turned fiery red_, sharpening in mooned horns
Their phalanx."

What an intense picture of ardour preparatory to action (it is night,
remember) is presented to our imaginations by the words "turned fiery
red!"

"On t'other side, Satan alarm'd,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
Like Teneriff, or Atlas, unremov'd:
His stature reach'd the sky."

Then would have come the tug of war--then

"Dreadful deeds
Might have ensued;"

and would have ensued--

"Had not soon
The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in heaven his golden scales."--
"The fiend look'd up and knew
His mounted scale aloft; nor more, but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night."

But in the interview which Miss Barrett describes between Gabriel and
Lucifer, no such headlong propensity to act is manifested by either
party--no such crisis ensues to interrupt the fray. Gabriel is satisfied
with giving utterance to a feeble threat, which, when he finds that
Lucifer pays no attention to it, he never attempts to carr