24 PRESUMPTUOUS POETRY. 



" his stature reached the sky." 



HERAUD. 



" his stature reached the sky." 



MILTON. 



"Hurled headlong flaming from the etherial sky, 

 In ruin and combustion, down to hell." 



HERAUD. 



" Hurled headlong flaming from the etherial sky 

 With hideous ruin and combustion down." 



MILTON. 

 " His front was scarred with thunder." 



HERAUD. 



( ' but his face 



Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd." 



MILTON. 



Mr. Heraud speaks of the appearance of Noah upon a certain oc- 

 casion thus : 



Now, like a blasted oak or tower 



Magnificent, scathed by heaven's lightning shaft, 

 He stood." 



What is this but Milton's well known passage ? 



" As when heaven's fire 



Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines 

 With singed top their stately growth, though bare, 

 Stands on the blasted heath." 



Let us now look at Mr. Heraud's Death. It will not give him 

 immortality : 



" And his unnatural head was strangely crowned." 



HERAUD. 



" what seem'd his head 



The likeness of a kingly crown had on." 



MILTON. 



" like gaunt Death who with his mace 



(As Cain beheld in Hades) the thronged soil 

 He smote o'er shuddering Chaos, and wrought on 

 A mole immense, bridging the way from hell." 



HERAUD. 



" The aggregated soil 



Death with his mace petrific, cold and dry, 

 As with a trident, smote ; and fixed as firm 

 As Delos, floating once ; the rest his look 

 Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move, 

 And with asphaltic slime, broad as the gate, 

 Deep to the roots of hell the gather'd beach 

 They fasten'd, and the mole immense wrought on, 

 Over the foaming deep a bridge high-arch'd 

 Of length prodigious. " MILTON. 



Take the following description of Samiasa pulling down a mon- 

 strous idol, which in former days he had raised : 



" So saying, on that monstrous idol, he 

 Hung, in his maniac might, and tugged and strained, 



