_Demon._ I
Must force thy will.

_Justina._ It is invincible.
It were not free if thou had'st power upon it."

It must be admitted that where the Spaniard and the Englishman come
directly into competition the former excels. The dispute between the
Lady and Comus may be, as Johnson says it is, "the most animating and
affecting scene in the drama;" but, tried by the dramatic test which
Calderon bears so well, it is below the exigencies and the possibilities
of the subject. Nor does the poetry here, quite so abundantly as in the
other scenes in this unrivalled "suite of speeches," atone for the
deficiencies of the play.

It is a just remark of Pattison's that "in a mind of the consistent
texture of Milton's, motives are secretly influential before they emerge
in consciousness." In September, 1637, Milton had complained to Diodati
of his cramped situation in the country, and talked of taking chambers
in London. Within a few months we find this vague project matured into a
settled scheme of foreign travel. One tie to home had been severed by
the death of his mother in the preceding April; and his father was to
find another prop of his old age in his second son, Christopher, about
to marry and reside with him. "Lycidas" had appeared meanwhile, or was
to appear, and its bold denunciation of the Romanizing clergy might well
offend the ruling powers. The atmosphere at home was, at all events,
difficult breathing for an impotent patriot; and Milton may have come to
see what we so clearly see in "Comus," that his asperities and
limitations needed contact with the world. Why speak of the charms of
Italy, in themselves sufficient allurement to a poet and scholar? His