faded splendour, the clouded ruins of a god. The deformity of Satan is
only in the depravity of his will; he has no bodily deformity to excite
our loathing or disgust. The horns and tail are not there, poor emblems
of the unbending, unconquered spirit, of the writhing agonies within.
Milton was too magnanimous and open an antagonist to support his
argument by the bye-tricks of a hump and cloven foot; to bring into the
fair field of controversy the good old catholic prejudices of which
Tasso and Dante have availed themselves, and which the mystic German
critics would restore. He relied on the justice of his cause, and did
not scruple to give the devil his due. Some persons may think that he
has carried his liberality too far, and injured the cause he professed
to espouse by making him the chief person in his poem. Considering the
nature of his subject, he would be equally in danger of running into
this fault, from his faith in religion, and his love of rebellion; and
perhaps each of these motives had its full share in determining the
choice of his subject.

Not only the figure of Satan, but his speeches in council, his
soliloquies, his address to Eve, his share in the war in heaven, or in
the fall of man, shew the same decided superiority of character. To give
only one instance, almost the first speech he makes:

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost archangel, this the seat
That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sov'rain can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewel happy fields,