forbearance; how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by
sin, and how hope of pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer.
A state of innocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our present
misery, it be possible to conceive it; but the sentiments and
worship proper to a fallen and offending being, we have all to
learn, as we have all to practise.

The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors in
their first state conversed with angels; even when folly and sin had
degraded them, they had not in their humiliation "the port of mean
suitors;" and they rise again to reverential regard, when we find
that their prayers were heard.

As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall, there is
in the "Paradise Lost" little opportunity for the pathetic; but what
little there is has not been lost. That passion, which is peculiar
to rational nature, the anguish arising from the consciousness of
transgression, and the horrors attending the sense of the Divine
displeasure, are very justly described and forcibly impressed. But
the passions are moved only on one occasion; sublimity is the
general and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variously
modified--sometimes descriptive, sometimes argumentative.

The defects and faults of "Paradise Lost"--for faults and defects
every work of man must have--it is the business of impartial
criticism to discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton,
I have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties there
had been no end, I shall in the same general manner mention that
which seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take delight
in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the reputation of