up in his own shape," he has at least a determined form; and when he
is brought before Gabriel, he has "a spear and a shield," which he
had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the
contending angels are evidently material.

The vulgar inhabitants of Pandaemonium, being "incorporeal spirits,"
are "at large, though without number," in a limited space: yet in
the battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour
hurt them, "crushed in upon their substance, now grown gross by
sinning." This likewise happened to the uncorrupted angels, who
were overthrown the "sooner for their arms, for unarmed they might
easily as spirits have evaded by contraction or remove." Even as
spirits they are hardly spiritual: for "contraction" and "remove"
are images of matter; but if they could have escaped without their
armour, they might have escaped from it, and left only the empty
cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, is
material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of
Adam.

The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole
narration of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and the
book in which it is related is, I believe, the favourite of
children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.

After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained,
may be considered that of allegorical persons which have no real
existence. To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas
with form, and animate them with activity, has always been the right
of poetry. But such airy beings are, for the most part, suffered
only to do their natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells a