Where joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor: one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."

The whole of the speeches and debates in Pandemonium are well worthy
of the place and the occasion--with Gods for speakers, and angels and
archangels for hearers. There is a decided manly tone in the arguments
and sentiments, an eloquent dogmatism, as if each person spoke from
thorough conviction; an excellence which Milton probably borrowed from
his spirit of partisanship, or else his spirit of partisanship from the
natural firmness and vigour of his mind. In this respect Milton
resembles Dante, (the only modern writer with whom he has any thing in
common) and it is remarkable that Dante, as well as Milton, was a
political partisan. That approximation to the severity of impassioned
prose which has been made an objection to Milton's poetry, and which is
chiefly to be met with in these bitter invectives, is one of its great
excellences. The author might here turn his philippics against Salmasius
to good account. The rout in Heaven is like the fall of some mighty
structure, nodding to its base, "with hideous ruin and combustion down."