partake of that good and evil which extend to themselves.

Of the MACHINERY, so called from [Greek text], by which is meant the
occasional interposition of supernatural power, another fertile
topic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because
everything is done under the immediate and visible direction of
Heaven; but the rule is so far observed, that no part of the action
could have been accomplished by any other means.

Of EPISODES, I think there are only two--contained in Raphael's
relation of the war in Heaven, and Michael's prophetic account of
the changes to happen in this world. Both are closely connected
with the great action; one was necessary to Adam as a warning, the
other as a consolation.

To the completeness or INTEGRITY of the design nothing can be
objected; it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle requires--a
beginning, a middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, of the
same length, from which so little can be taken without apparent
mutilation. Here are no funeral games, nor is there any long
description of a shield. The short digressions at the beginning of
the third, seventh, and ninth books, might doubtless be spared, but
superfluities so beautiful who would take away? or who does not wish
that the author of the "Iliad" had gratified succeeding ages with a
little knowledge of himself? Perhaps no passages are more
attentively read than those extrinsic paragraphs; and, since the end
of poetry is pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with which all are
pleased.

The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly ONE,