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wanderings come first, and the fighting comes last : here too, 

 the subject is one of stirring interest to a Eoman, relating as it 

 does to the origin of his race and famous city ; the struggles of 

 his ancestor " in the doubtful war, before he won The Latian 

 realm, and built the destin'd town ; " the establishment of his 

 people in their newly-won land, and the origin of the line " From 

 whence the race of Alban fathers come, and the long glories of 

 majestic Eome." 



Now we have to see what use our English poets have made of 

 these, how they have transplanted the three epics of antiquity 

 and made them revive in a foreign soil, how they have adapted 

 to a subject of their own choosing that mode of treating a great 

 series of actions which the old poet has used, how the embellish- 

 ment of the ancient poems is brought into conformity with 

 modern usages, and how peculiarities and mannerisms are 

 successfully wrought into the fabric of the English poem. That 

 epic poem which occupies the leading place in our literature, a 

 poem which perhaps is more an object of eulogy than study, but 

 which has power in it sufficient to stamp its author as one of 

 our foremost, is the Paradise Lost. It, hke the IHad, has a 

 companion, the Paradise Eegained, but I think I may say that 

 the popularity of the two is by no means equal : the number of 

 those who have read a Book of the latter, which the author con- 

 sidered the superior work, is only a small percentage of the 

 number of those who have read a Book of the former. Probably 

 the reason for the neglect is the preponderance of dialogue over 

 incident, which removes the poem somewhat fi'om the epic to 

 the dramatic in its style ; but there are in it certain passages 

 which have a true Homeric ring about them, such as that which 

 describes the sumptuous banquet prepared for the temptation, 

 and that in which the splendour of the imperial city, Eome, is 

 delineated : these passages, though overloaded with allusions 

 and cloying through the excessive learning displayed, are full of 

 pictures such as Homer would love to throw before the minds of 

 his hearers, full of poetical ornament, and full of the swiftness 

 and terseness of Homeric eloquence. It is in the Paradise Lost 

 however, that the structure of the epic, as devised by Homer, is 

 most faithfully preseiwed. There the majestic action is plainly 

 set forth, and worked through its details to its completion in the 

 loss of Eden. If Homer chose a subject which was likely to 

 interest his countrymen and, by depicting to the men of his day 

 the glories of their ancestors, to encourage them to equal deeds 

 of valour, surely Milton might hope, in a deeply religious age, 

 such as he had found himself in during his earlier life, to raise 

 the thoughts of men to their higher interests, by selecting as his 

 theme the sublime story of " man's first disobedience, and the 

 fruit of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death 



