beyond other men Bentley had, could gain him the imaginative sensibility
which, in a degree so far beyond average men, he wanted. Consequently, the
world never before beheld such a scene of massacre as his 'Paradise Lost'
exhibited. He laid himself down to his work of extermination like the
brawniest of reapers going in steadily with his sickle, coat stripped off,
and shirt sleeves tucked up, to deal with an acre of barley. One duty, and
no other, rested upon _his_ conscience; one voice he heard--Slash away,
and hew down the rotten growths of this abominable amanuensis. The carnage
was like that after a pitched battle. The very finest passages in every
book of the poem were marked by italics, as dedicated to fire and
slaughter. 'Slashing Dick' went through the whole forest, like a woodman
marking with white paint the giant trees that must all come down in a
month or so. And one naturally reverts to a passage in the poem itself,
where God the Father is supposed to say to his Filial assessor on the
heavenly throne, when marking the desolating progress of Sin and Death,--

'See with what havoc these fell dogs advance
To ravage this fair world.'

But still this inhuman extravagance of Bentley, in following out his
hypothesis, does not exonerate _us_ from bearing in mind so much
truth as that hypothesis really must have had, from the pitiable
difficulties of the great poet's situation.

My own opinion, therefore, upon the line, for instance, from 'Paradise
Regained,' which Mr. Landor appears to have indicated for the reader's
amazement, viz.:--

'As well might recommend
_Such solitude before choicest society_,'